Coalition decries Charles connector

foes say highway will bring sprawl Environmental hazards feared

Representatives of the Smarter Growth Alliance for Charles County said the county's plans for a cross-county connector are outdated and environmentally hazardous and will bring sprawl to the northern end of the county.

The coalition of nearly 20 environmental organizations drew nearly 200 residents to a public forum Wednesday. At the event, coalition members highlighted what they said would be irreparable harm to the Mattawoman Creek watershed if the last six miles of the east-west highway planned to connect routes 210 and 5 are built.

The Mattawoman Creek is the "most productive tributary in Maryland to the Chesapeake Bay," said Terry Cummings of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, citing a 2005 statement from a Maryland Department of Natural Resources biologist. "That is something not to be taken for granted but nurtured like a growing child."

Eric Fisher, a planner with the foundation, said the high accident rate of Billingsley Road, one of the reasons Charles County proposed the new four-lane highway, would not change because the county is not closing the old road.

"There is a distinct possibility the cross-county connector will draw more traffic to the area, including Billingsley Road," Fisher said.

He said only one intersection in that stretch would improve with the new highway, based on a May 8 letter from the county planners to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Three county commissioners attended the meeting but were not invited to speak.

In an interview, commissioners Vice President Edith J. Patterson (D-Pomfret) said the highway "will reduce the number of people on the road and reduce the number of accidents." She said there has been a reduction in crashes since the construction of 10 miles of the connector from Route 5 to Middletown Road.

The remaining road, which county officials said will cost $47 million but opponents say could go as high as $60 million, would destroy 7.5 acres of wetlands and 14 football fields' worth of natural water-purifiers, said Jim Long of the Mattawoman Watershed Society. He said the amount of impervious surface that would be created by the road and planned residential developments within a mile of it would produce about 11,000 pounds of nitrogen and other harmful nutrients in the creek.

Jennifer Bevan-Dangle, deputy director of 1000 Friends of Maryland, said the county should focus its money and efforts into projects such as light rail and the Waldorf urban center, instead of helping to create sprawl.

Commissioner Reuben B. Collins II (D-Waldorf) said most of the property in the county's development zone, which includes the connector road, is zoned and approved for new residential construction.

Collins said "a well-designed road, in our opinion, would greatly minimize the [construction] of additional arteries" built by developers in the Billingsley Road corridor, which "would create even more of a hardship on Mattawoman Creek."