In Boyds, an Enduring Debate Over Infrastructure, Tradition

Seeking Growth, a Church Fights for a Sewer Connection

The Rev. Timothy B. Warner, leading St. Mark's United Methodist Church in prayer, says that a water and sewer connection would make it much easier for his Boyds congregation to expand with a larger facility. (By James M. Thresher -- The Washington Post)

Living in Montgomery County's 93,000-acre agricultural reserve offers vistas of wide-open fields, a big sky, room to breathe -- all about an hour from downtown Washington. It also demands the acceptance of tight restrictions against high-density development and the absence of services that most county residents take for granted: water and sewer.

Now, a church congregation in Boyds, an unincorporated town of 3,080 acres and a few hundred people at the reserve's edge, is rethinking that equation. It is preparing a campaign to seek public water and sewer service for the church and some homes, a movement that is likely to be seen as a challenge to the sanctity of the reserve, regarded by many in Montgomery as one of the county's defining features.

"We will fight it tooth and nail," said Melissa Foster, president of the Boyds Civic Association, referring to any effort to bring in water and sewer lines. In recent decades, the association has succeeded in ensuring that Boyds remains an outpost of rural charm that lives up to its motto: "Home in the country."

But members of St. Mark's United Methodist Church, a predominately African American congregation formed in the late 1800s, say that efforts to preserve Boyds's character must also respect the rights and aspirations of the descendants of the freed slaves who settled in the area before the town was created.

"The anti-development argument doesn't work when the community cannot develop itself," said the Rev. Timothy B. Warner, the church's pastor. His congregation, he said, is planning to build a larger church next to the existing one to accommodate a membership that has quadrupled since he became pastor three years ago.

Many Boyds residents say they do just fine with wells and septic systems. "That water is just delicious," said Margaret Coleman, a Boyds resident and historian, pointing to a glass of well water from her kitchen tap. "I wouldn't exchange it for [Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission] water for anything."

Judy Daniel, a planner in the county Department of Park and Planning, notes that county leaders and master plans have long opposed water and sewer service in Boyds and other parts of the reserve. "When you bring in water and sewer, you bring in pressure for higher-density development," she said.

Last November, the County Council voted unanimously to close a loophole that had allowed the reserve's churches and other tax-exempt institutions to obtain water and sewer connections. Last week, the council voted, again unanimously, to limit the size of septic systems in much of the reserve. Both decisions reflected the totemic regard with which Montgomery's leaders view the 25-year-old reserve, which covers about a third of the county. Planning Board Chairman Derick Berlage displays a photo in his office of pastoral Poolesville framed against high-rise development across the Potomac.

Foster and Del Lamiman, vice president of the association, said they were surprised to hear that St. Mark's members were raising the issue of water and sewer access, but it is a long-standing point of disagreement in the community.

Arthur Virts, a founder of the civic association and lifelong resident, has a letter in his files from an association committee to the membership dated Aug. 9, 1966. The missive lays out the pros and cons of connecting Boyds to water and sewer lines; among the three signatories were two St. Mark's members, Betty Hawkins and the Rev. Carlton Talley Sr., who are now pressing for connection, just as they did then.

They were outvoted in 1966, and again at other times over the years, and would likely be today. "Public water and sewer should not be extended in the agricultural reserve, period," Lamiman said.

The subtext of race lies not far beneath the debate's surface. In a letter to the council last year, Warner opposed any limitations that would prevent St. Mark's from expanding and complained about the lack of water and sewer connections. "It is as if, as the descendants of ex-slaves, we are returning to slave-like conditions, not being considered in the decisionmaking, being relegated to less than adequate living facilities, while doing much of the service work that life in a community demands," he wrote.