Western Maryland Windfarm Update: The Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR) is soliciting public input to help guide the development of a state policy governing the use of public lands to host wind power turbines and related infrastructure. The public process is being initiated in part in response to recent private requests to lease property in Savage River State Forest to site wind energy generators.Go to the website at http://www.dnr.state.md.us/sustainability/wpm/
and submit your comments electronically.
Public comment period ends on March 3, 2008.
The Maryland Forests Association opposes the proposal by Pennsylvania-based U.S. Wind Force to take over and permanently clear 400 publicly-owned forested acres to erect 100 turbines, each 40 stories tall.Maryland's State forests began 100 years ago with an initial donation by the Garrett Brothers in Garrett County. With the donation of forestland, the Garrett brothers imposed several conditions that were soon legislated into the law in the 1906 Forestry Conservation Act.
The State of Maryland was to make “adequate condition for its [forests] care.” Maryland was required to establish a “State Board of Forestry” for the purpose of overseeing management of this land. The law stated that any additional gifts of land should be administered “as State Forest Reserves…to be used …to demonstrate the practical utility of timber culture and as a breeding place for game.”Having just recently celebrated the Centennial of this wondrous gift, we ask "How can Governor O'Malley be so far amiss of the donors' intentions and the stated purpose for Maryland's state forests?"
The mission of the DNR Forest Service is stated on its website as :"The Forest Service restores, manages, and protects Maryland’s trees, forests, and forested ecosystems to sustain our natural resources and connect people to the land."
Thus, the primary reason for opposition is the issue of public trust. The lands in question - Potomac and Savage River State Forests -- are publicly-owned, sustainably managed by professional foresters with attendant costs underwritten by taxpayer dollars for the benefit of the public good.
Maryland's forests have a long history of providing multiple products. The managed forest provides homes for a wide variety of wildlife, clean water, and forest products for our use while producing oxygen for her citizens and sequestering carbon. Maryland's forests are her lungs and are being lost at an alarming rate; 8,600 acres per year are lost to development for her expanding population and the required support services such as roads, schools, homes, and shopping areas. If we permit the wind power lobby to remove 400 acres of trees from State Forest Land, Maryland's citizens permanently lose that carbon sequestration and the oxygen factory which supports 6,800 of her citizens.
Wind turbines, while touted as green energy and a part of the solution to global warming, are not the answer for the forests of western Maryland. Turbines will ultimately increase carbon emissions due to the variability in the power supplied to the grid and the proposal to locate these wind turbines on State Forest Land will decrease the carbon sequestration capacity of Maryland's forests by permanently removing that forest.
If wind turbines do not make sense in western Maryland's forests as a whole, this is not a proposal that should be considered by the DNR for use on State Forest Land. State Forest Lands are held in perpetuity for conservation of their multiple forest resources and this land should continue to be a model of forest practices and conservation for her Citizens. State Forest Land should not become a site of forest destruction for single use purpose thereby eliminating the many benefits that Maryland's citizens receive from this forest land.
Advancing strategies for renewable energy is a prerequisite for a stable economy, a cleaner environment and a securer future. We believe that wind power has its place in our State. We implore the O'Malley Administration to direct U.S. Wind Force elsewhere…on privately-owned lands.
A violation of the "public trust"-
meaning, access to all for a publicly-owned resource-
is simply unacceptable.
