Flower could bulldoze highway

Friday, Feb. 27, 2009

And they have three months to do it.

In a letter to Charles County officials last month, Amanda Sigillito, chief of the Maryland Department of the Environment's Non-Tidal Wetland Permits Office, outlined six issues regarding the county's controversial cross-county connector project that cause her office concern.

The third issue was the potato dandelion, a "critically imperiled" species in Maryland which is known to grow in the proposed path of the northern parts of the connector road.

"Consequently, the county must field locate, flag and [satellite position] the full extent of the rare species population," Sigillito wrote. "The population should be mapped as an overlay on the mapping of the preferred route and any alternative routes so that … potential impacts may be assessed."

The issue of the rare dandelion was brought to MDE's attention by Jim Long of the Mattawoman Watershed Society, which has long opposed the connector project. The society, along with other local and statewide conservation watchdog groups are opposed to the highway, believing that the project will degrade or destroy the Mattawoman Creek, rated as the most pristine creek left in the state.

Opponents say that the county should take the next few years and complete an Environmental Impact Statement that would fully explain the road's effect. The county has argued that it has already completed an environmental study and that further delay will raise the road's $30 million price tag.

To Long, the lack of information about the dandelion shows a lack of thoroughness in the county's environmental reports for the connector.

"Basically, the only thing that was done is that a database was consulted," Long said Thursday. "[The dandelion's] presence is an example of what we've been saying all along. The environmental studies have been woefully inadequate."

Long said that the dandelion in question is not related to the common yard weed, which is an invasive species that came from Europe with early settlers of the United States. Long said the potato dandelion has a similar blossom to the weed, but it is a native species, more common throughout the south and Midwest. Maryland and New Jersey are on the northern edge of the plant's range, Long said.

"This is not the common weed," Long said. "It will not hurt your lawn."

Commissioners' President F. Wayne Cooper (D) said that the county's planning department will follow the recommendations of the letter and have a consultant survey the proposed path of the road in May, when the flower blooms.

"I know [an environmental] study has been done, and I wonder how it was missed," Cooper said. "If [the survey] is something they requested us to do, then we'll have to do it."

MDE also asked the county to address other issues. They asked for an explanation of why the county's justification for the highway has shifted from providing a new transportation link to providing a safe alternative to Billingsley Road. They asked the county to find further ways to avoid and mitigate wetland destruction and the creation of impervious surfaces that can cause chemical runoff.

Finally, MDE asked the county to determine if the Mattawoman contains any Tier II or high quality stream segments. If it does, then the county will have to undertake more stringent mitigation practices, possibly even moving the highway's path.

The county has until June 1, under an extended review period, to answer MDE's concerns if they want to obtain a permit to cross the Mattawoman. The county is also busy answering similar questions from the Army Corps of Engineers in order to obtain a federal permit.

jfriess@somdnews.com