Pepco should rethink proposal
Wednesday, Dec. 29, 2010
In addition to the environmental concerns voiced by the American Chestnut Land Trust and the Chesapeake Biological Lab, there are more critical issues raised by the project proposed by the Pepco Holdings Group that should concern all residents of Calvert County.
As a community of 90,000-plus residents, Calvert County has a long history of land use planning: an activity that is the domain of the County, not the domain or activity of a one-time corporate structure established for a single purpose; to erect a section of the national electric grid.
If allowed to go forward with this blatant violation of the county's zoning regulations, Pepco has opened the door for any other well-funded corporate entity to drop a future project at will on any land available for their use without regard to our zoning regulations.
In short, the concepts of locating commercial operations in our town centers or industrial operations on land zoned for industrial activities would become a vague concept, for planners only.
We, the citizens of Calvert, have worked too hard for too many years to establish order to our land use to allow a large utility to thumb its collective nose at our zoning.
I only hope that the newly elected Calvert County Board of County Commissioners is willing to fully protect the citizens of Calvert, past, present and future from this blatant and arrogant proposal.
And, I also hope that Pepco and its partners will rethink their proposal and relocate their activities to land already zoned for this purpose.
Robert M. Pfeiffer, Port Republic
