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Subject: Council Agenda Item: 14: $3.2 million CIP and Supplemental Appropriation for the Science and Tech Park at Montgomery College's Germantown Campus
To: Council President Phil Andrews and Members of the Montgomery County Council
While we endorse the support of Montgomery College in principle, we are alarmed about the unintended consequences this particular appropriations action may have for the very significant 50 acre forest stand gracing the Germantown campus. This mature upland forest, predominantly oak and tulip polar contains over 400 trees, with 108 identified as "Specimen Trees."
A presentation made by Montgomery College to the Planning Board in July and October of 2008, indicates that College designs for the roadway network would lay waste to more than half of the forested acreage, leaving only fragmented stands of tree canopy.
Certain issues related to this action should be part of the picture: According to current plans, the road connecting Goldenrod Lane, Observation Drive, MD 118, MD355 and Middlebrook Rd. for example, would bisect the forest.
The proposal that a hospital be part of the Tech Park means that public access requirements may significantly alter the plan to the detriment of the forest.
The Bioscience Education building design currently requires connecting roads that intrude into the high priority forest area. We would remind you that these proposed plans are in total conflict with the Forest Conservation Law, the County's Climate Protection Plan, and the Planning Board Draft of the Germantown Sector Plan. The appropriation action taken today should specify that road alignments and building placement should not result in reduction of this significant upcounty forest.
Like the County in general, Germantown currently lacks sufficient forest cover to maintain the health of its two watersheds: Great Seneca and Little Seneca. Studies indicate that a 45% forest cover is necessary to sustain healthy watersheds. With only 14% forest cover, Germantown desperately needs forest protection, not a plan that would decimate one of its most important forested resources.
We now know what we did not understand only decades ago: that forests are of utmost importance in addressing climate change, air pollution, groundwater recharge, and watershed protection. But they also play a viable role in driving economic development and creating livable communities.
In 1973, according to the County Forest Preservation Strategy report from 2000, forest cover in Montgomery was a much healthier 45%, or 143,00 forested acres. By 2000, we had lost 54,000 acres of forest, leaving the county with only 28% forest cover. Doubtless in the last eight years, acres of residential and commercial development as well as the ICC construction, have eliminated or significantly fragmented forest cover. Now more than ever, we need to ramp up efforts to preserve what remains.
Dolores Milmoe
