River Fight Flows On
Opponents of river plan want staffer out, assisted by Idaho property rights group
Landowners, who earlier this year led an effort to gut sections of a river management plan, are circulating a petition to oust a Frederick County staffer from the river board because he is “an immoveable obstacle to a successful plan.” And, recently obtained documents show that opponents of the plan received help from an Idaho-based property-rights group that threatened board members with litigation if they did not change course on the plan.
The petition to dump Planner Tim Goodfellow, and letters from the Stand Up and Fight Club, and the Club’s attorney were obtained via a public information act request from Urbana resident Matt Seubert.
The draft of the Monocacy River Management Plan, now in its final stages, is mandated by the state. The Monocacy Scenic River Citizens' Advisory Board, made up of Carroll and Frederick County residents and county employees, were tasked with producing the plan, which will be voted upon by the Frederick County Council later this year.
Landowners and other groups pushed hard against the plan’s call for 300 to 500 feet of riparian buffer along the Monocacy River. Buffers, usually a mix of tall grass, brush and trees, are deemed by environmentalists as the cheapest and most effective way to filter contaminants. Depending on the use of the river, 50 to 100 feet of buffer is the norm. Opponents say they already have 150 feet of setbacks, mandated by FEMA as floodplain protection. Conditions of the floodplain setbacks preclude owners from activities like piling dirt or building in the area, but do not require a natural growth of trees, brush, shrubs or grass.
In response to concerns from landowners and their supporters, the River Board removed all environmental protection recommendations from the plan in February. But the group is not yet satisfied. Opposition leader Earl Bell was appointed to the board in April by Carroll County Commissioner Richard Rothschild. “I put him on the board for counter balance there. I might be taking people off the board, too,” he said.
Rothschild, a strong proponent of property rights, said he has offered guidance to landowners, but is not responsible for the petition asking for Goodfellow’s resignation. He did, however, ask County Executive Gardner a few months ago to remove Goodfellow from the board.
Gardner declined the request, according to Vivian Laxton, Frederick County spokeswoman.
The petition asks for a “no confidence vote” on Goodfellow, and states:
“We strongly believe that Mr. Goodfellow’s stance of making broad recommendations and then claiming details will come later (after the River Plan is passed), is a severely flawed process that will result in problematic outcomes.”
Rothschild said he believes the board will be more effective with “new blood.” “You get history with someone, even if they are of good intention,” he said.
The Lower Monocacy River is a Category 4c waterway, a classification from the Maryland Department of the Environment that indicates a level of “impairment.” MDE’s 2016 Integrated Report on the state’s waterways, says that analysis of the Monocacy “indicates that the lack of a riparian buffer is a major stressor affecting biological integrity in this watershed.” The cause listed is “agriculture.”
MDE maintains four water quality monitoring stations along the Monocacy River, according to Frederick County Planning Director Steve Horn.
Data from the U.S. Geological Survey between 2007 and 2011 shows high levels of nitrogen and phosphorus pollution. In 2009, 65 percent of the smallmouth bass in the river died; 29 percent of those had lesions on their skin.
Rothschild isn’t buying it. “Here’s the problem,” he said. “They always talk about pollution in vague, nebulous terms. Give me names of property owners who are causing the problem and I will fix it.” Environmental staffers at Carroll County, he said, told him that the biggest contaminant is bacterial, not nitrogen or phosphorus. Rothschild said “loose nebulous terms like ‘impaired’” are used to justify “draconian actions.”
Frederick city gets 26 percent of its water from the Monocacy River. It’s latest annual water quality report issued June 2016 for 2015 study, shows no contaminate level violations. The water met all of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and State of Maryland health standards for drinking water contaminants, according to the report.
Seubert, who has been actively advocating for resource protections in the river management plan, said he offered a compromise of 35 feet of warm season grass and 100 feet of forested buffer and got no takers. “There was language in the plan proposal to recommend that, and it got shot down,” Seubert said. “Tim [Goodfellow] and some of the board members started looking at geological and archeological areas to be protected, but opponents went nuts on that again, and accused him of trying to be sneaky. They see no value in protecting anything, not even an archeological site.”
As the first county commissioner to oppose the United Nations’ International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI), Rothschild said he is opposed to unelected boards who aren’t accountable to the public. ICLEI supports sustainable development, and is the local version of the UN.’s Agenda 21, a global initiative enacted in 1992 to combat climate change. One of the hallmarks of the United Nations’ Agenda 21, Rothschild said, is the creation of regional boards.
Agenda 21 also interferes with property rights, the commissioner said. Although reluctant to name the River Board as an outgrowth of the Agenda 21 initiative, Rothschild said the board advocates for policies that are “suspiciously similar,” because its proposals impinge on people’s rights to enjoy their property.
The Stand and Fight Club and its attorney Fred Kelly Grant are also associated with efforts to eliminate local sustainability efforts of Agenda 21. The Idaho-based organization sent a letter to the River Board and elected officials on Jan. 31. Club Director Robin Frazier is a former Carroll County Commissioner who lives in Taneytown, MD. In the letter, Frazier said that “many of us have served in a government capacity and are quite aware of the fact that once an opening exists there is no limit to the intrusion on property rights.”
On Jan.31, Idaho-based attorney Fred Kelly Grant, sent a letter to the River Board, threatening to sue the members personally. From the letter:
"[The Monocacy River Plan] has the potential for turning a healthy scenic river into a focus for costly litigation---needless litigation because the River and the environment are healthy without any further regulation …
There is not one piece of scientific, economic, cultural, or common sense evidence that public safety or health are at risk, or that the environment is in any way endangered or in danger of being compromised … If you accept and adopt this Plan and Sub-Plan, and if you implement it by regulation or ordinance, you will subject yourselves to lawsuits seeking damages from your governments and from you personally.”
The River Board voted 5-1 to remove the resource protection area from the draft plan on Feb. 1. Three Frederick County members of the board did not attend the meeting. On Feb. 5, the Board received another letter from Grant, where he reminds them about his previous threat of liability. "As you go through this process please keep in mind the notice I gave you in my letter of January 31, 2017----remind yourselves of Monterey v. Del Monte Dunes when you are tempted to reinstate the Protection Area provisions," Grant said.
The next meeting of the Monocacy Scenic River Board will be held on Wednesday, May 3 at the Taneytown Fire Department, 39 East Baltimore Street, Taneytown, Maryland. The meeting will begin at 6:30pm. According to the agenda, the board plans to review and finalize the draft plan. Member Jack Lynch said the final plan will likely go before county leaders in September. County Executive Gardner has been steadfast in letting the board undertake drafting the plan without intervention, and it will still go through public process once the plan is finalized, according to Laxton.
Read the draft plan here.
