Central Maryland residents in growing numbers are vowing to stop a proposed upgrade to the region’s energy grid involving a 500,000-volt overhead transmission line that would cut across farms, parks, neighborhoods, wetlands and forests in three counties.
The Maryland Piedmont Reliability Project would carve a 70-mile path through largely rural areas of Baltimore, Carroll and Frederick counties, in areas, opponents believe, where government land preservation programs have spent hundreds of millions of dollars over decades to purchase development rights placing land in perpetual easements.
In Carroll alone, data from the county’s Department of Planning and Land Management shows proposed power lines could affect 130 farms preserved through various county, state and federal programs. In just one potential 3-mile stretch through Hampstead, power lines could be built across 10 farms and 900 acres — all preserved land.
At one of those farms, owned for generations by members of the Lippy family, one scenario runs lines between a home built in 2008 and a 300-year old farmhouse.
Click here to read the rest of the article written by Lorraine Mirabella over at The Baltimore Sun
