Want to learn more about the Reserve, this year's routes and how your support helps local farms? The routes will be unveiled over two zoom sessions with Ride Chair and Reserve Cyclist Vivien Bonazzi. Join us live or watch the recorded sessions. These Zooms are open to registered and not-yet-registered riders. The first of two sessions will cover the new Routes in the Ag Reserve (on 9/3), the second will cover riding your stationary bike at home with other riders over online platform Zwift (on 9/9.) You can see the Zwift route (based on the Tour de France, but not the super hilly part) below.  (unsure what set up you need for Zwift? This video is helpful)

For much more information on the ride or to register, click here. 
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Among the issues to balance in citing renewable energy is protection of other natural resources - particularly trees that are providing their own complimentary carbon sequestration.  So it goes with ZTA 20-01 - a proposal to site commercial solar arrays on up to 3 square miles of Montgomery County's Agricultural Reserve. We've fielded lots of questions about how this proposal will protect farmland soils, water quality and forests. The answer is that this proposal is moving toward the Council with very scant protections for forests/water quality and soils.  

​Please take two minutes to contact the Council today. 

Currently the ZTA leaves forest protection to the individual site plans for each property, meaning forests protections will be done on a case by case basis at the Planning Board.  One county resident with questions dug into how this might play out by looking at a 6 acre array installed by the Town of Poolesville that cleared nearly 3.4 acres of forest to install arrays (the right side of the array as can be seen in the site plan below). Their digging has uncovered that forest conservation laws may not apply to utilities. It begs the question - under the proposed ZTA, can established forests be cut down to accommodate solar arrays?

The resident who has been digging into this issue posed the following questions to ZTA backers at the MoCo Sierra Club and is awaiting a response (bolding below is ours)  (see: What some local civic groups are misunderstanding about commercial solar in the Reserve)​


"I wanted to bring this issue up because I have been trying to get a clear and definitive answer and I am hoping the Sierra Club can be of assistance. I saw that the Sierra Club is hosting an upcoming webinar on the topic. After Councilmember Riemer recently introduced the solar ZTA for the Ag Reserve he stated that people shouldn't worry about tree or forest loss because the Forest Conservation Law would take care of it. 
Around that time, I started looking at the 6-acre solar project that was built in Poolesville in 2014 by Standard Solar as part of a public-private partnership. I looked back at the satellite imagery and got the records through DPS (pictures above). It turns out that 3.4 acres of forest were cut down for the solar panels. DPS states that they did not require a forest conservation plan or any mitigation - but suggested I ask the Town of Poolesville. The manager for the Town said that they went back through their files and had no records of a forest conservation plan or mitigation documents for the project. Montgomery Planning also did not have any records since Poolesville is not under their jurisdiction. The Town manager said he thought that maybe the project had been exempted from the forest conservation law because it was considered a utility (but he wasn't sure because there were no records). I still have Montgomery County looking into it but so far this is all anyone has been able to tell me. 
The Forest Conservation Law (Chapter 22A) does in fact provide the following exemption - 
(5) The cutting or clearing of public utility rights-of-way or land for electric generating stations licensed pursuant to § 7-204 , § 7-205 , § 7-207 , or § 7-208 of the Public Utilities Article , provided that:
(i) Any required certificates of public convenience and necessity have been issued in accordance with § 5-1603(f) of this subtitle;  and
(ii) The cutting or clearing of the forest is conducted so as to minimize the loss of forest;

So my question now is - what (if any) possible "loopholes" in the Forest Conservation Law would potentially apply to this ZTA and future solar projects in the Ag Reserve? (Also, note the phrase "minimize the loss of forest" in this section of the law is rather subjective.) 

These fundamental questions left unanswered about forest protections, in addition to the fact that many Reserve residents that would host or live adjacent to these arrays are unable to participate in the new civic engagement by video conference landscape because of spotty broadband, add to the need for careful and deliberate action on this important and controversial issue. Renewable energy is part of the solution to our climate crisis but only if it is part of a holistic approach that preserves natural systems.  Please take two minutes to write the Council. 

After three sessions in committee, ZTA 20-01 that would allow commercial solar on up to 3 square miles of the Agricultural Reserve with scant protections for productive soils, water quality and forests - is headed to the Council.   The ZTA markup voted out of committee can be found here. 

Council Legislative staffer Jeffrey Zyontz says that the full council will likely take this up by the end of September or early October. Members of the agricultural community and residents of the Agricultural Reserve who are not served by broadband (see: 
Lack of Broadband Leaves Reserve Communities Behind in the Pandemic)  and have limited cellular service have asked that this controversial matter be held until the public can participate meaningfully after the pandemic is more under control.

Your voice matters... the Council needs to hear from you on this issue, take two minutes to send them a letter now.

Concerns with this significant zoning change are broadly held and have not been properly addressed by council members or staff.

Full Background on this issue is here. 

Answering specific FAQs on this controversial issue:

-I support renewable energy, can you just give me the 2 minute synopsis on why this is such a big problem?
Yes, MCA does too. It is a matter of location and protections for the stated use of these lands - agriculture and open space protection. 2 minute synopsis right here. 

- Why are local environmental groups divided on commercial Solar in the Ag Reserve?

​-What are the protections in this ZTA for productive farm soils? (almost none)

-What are the established best practices on how a local government should handle siting of solar? Chesapeake Conservancy has a guide for Baltimore City + County. 

​-What do you mean by no protections for water quality? 
The ZTA as approved by committee allows these arrays on up to 15% grades - a steep hill. Crops would not be planted on these grades under sediment management plans normally, disturbing the soil for mis-named "solar farms" would also result in sedimentation of streams and ultimately the Potomac.  The Planning Department's own staff said that the siting of these arrays will protect "most of the wetlands" in rural areas (emphasis ours). 

Recent flood damage at Little Seneca Lake... regional backup drinking water supply for 4.3 million in our region.
Precipitation patterns have changed, bringing increasingly high volume and velocity rain events.
MCA has joined with Friends of Ten Mile Creek and partners to ask the County to embark in a more proactive water quality protection plan, including parkland acquisition, closing developer advantaged loopholes, and reforestation (like our Re-Leaf the Reserve Program).

There is currently a property proposed for development adjacent to parkland that drains into the Reservoir, called Linthicum West. MCA has joined with Friends of Ten Mile Creek and others to request that this property be considered for parkland acquisition to protect the Reservoir. Read the letter to parks department here with excerpts below. 

Weather and climate models show drastically increased rainfall in the coming decades. Water runs downhill -faster over paved surfaces, picking up debris as it goes and  slower over forests, filtering through layers of soil. To handle more rain, we need to really consider the land use patterns surrounding our drinking water sources. Stay tuned as we push for the acquisition of this land. 

Update: July 2020:
It seems that despite the pandemic, the council will be taking up this ZTA allowing siting industrial solar arrays in the Ag Reserve with no protections for productive soils or forests. The findings of the county's climate working group are clear as the Working Group Chair (reiterated in an email here to the Council here  and again by MCA  and also by Reserve Architect Dr. Royce Hanson. ) - the Ag Reserve is not the place for industrial solar. (The Maryland Farm Bureau agrees)

​An Electrical Systems Engineer Expert Weighs In "You can't change the laws of Physics....ZTA 20-01 is not the answer."


The pandemic makes it very difficult for people to properly participate in the public process (particularly in the Ag Reserve where broadband is not universal) but it has put a fine point on the critical value of local farms and local food. Our Land Link program has connected new and expanding farmers with over 500+ acres of leased land. Non-Ag uses like industrial solar make land leases, the lifeblood of farm ventures large and small in MoCo, much less likely to happen with severe impacts on next generation table crop producers - particularly those from under represented backgrounds.  Multi generation ag producers are also opposed to this ZTA.
Click Read More on below for all the background on this issue. 
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The first committee hearing on this issue was on July 9, read our wrap up here.  The second was on July 16 and is wrapped up here.  The final committee hearing was on 7/22 and the ZTA - still lacking soil/forest/water protections is headed to the full council in September. 

As civically engaged, community minded folks, MCA's supporters hear from a lot of different environmental groups. The same is true of county councilmembers and their staff. The question has come - "But why are you and Sierra Club/CCAN in disagreement about solar in the Ag Reserve?"  
The answer involves some misunderstanding on the part of our fellow civic groups. While we all want renewable energy and climate solutions, this ZTA is not the way to get there as it lacks protections for the very things that environmental groups usually agree need protecting. 

Case in point, this recent jubilant email from CCAN asking supporters to celebrate the "compromise" ZTA that came out of committee ready for debate at the full Council in September. CCAN email in italics, our clearing up of misstatements in below.

​Subject: Good news: MoCo compromise permits solar and farming side by side

MCA: There is in fact no stipulation for the co-location of agriculture in this bill. As numerous local farmers have testified, the idea that you can grow food/pollinator plants in the drought and shade of a solar array is rather ridiculous. This is not a compromise as no protections for water quality, forests or meaningful soil protections were passed. Be clear - the ZTA has been discussed in Council committees, not voted on by full council.

MCA: Class 1 soils constitute very few of the Reserve’s acres and are  located in riparian buffers, along the Potomac or streams and on islands in the Potomac. These acres are not suitable for farming. As the map below illustrates  the Red parts are class 1- very little. Soils of class 1,2 and 3 are all considered productive soils by the Office of Agriculture and most food and fiber of the Reserve is grown on class 2 and 3 (orange and peach colors respectively.) (see the table of which farms grow on which soils here.)  The green of the map is Ag Reserve land with soil classes higher than 3, i.e less than productive soils. It stands to reason that in an area set aside for agriculture, siting a commercial use on productive soils is to be avoided. At minimum, unproductive soils should be the only option for this industrial and commercial use. Those productive soils need to grow the next generation of local food producers.  
Additionally, it has become clear in committee hearings that the backers of this ZTA are looking for far more than this first 1800 acres for solar located on productive farmland. Despite the holistic approach of the report from the County's own climate change working group, ZTA architect Councilmember Riemer seems to be putting all his chips on field mounted solar to achieve the renewable/energy reduction portfolio we need to get to the County's climate goals. 

MCA: "Weakening" amendments is a misnomer. Under this ZTA, arrays will still be allowed on slopes of up to 15%, causing serious runoff and subsequent water quality issues. When asked about wetlands at the committee hearing, planning board staff said the ZTA  "should protect most wetlands." Most wetlands?! The ZTA may be amended to address no specific forest protection for forests to "forest loss should be minimized."  Clearly more protective amendments are needed to avoid harm to existing natural systems. 

MCA: There is still no stipulation in the ZTA that the energy created will be part of the Community Solar portfolio as defined by Maryland and it is frankly upsetting that the very real energy needs of low income people are being used as a selling point for this flawed ZTA. Without clear stipulation that these commercial facilities will be part of the  community solar initiative, energy generated will simply flow to regional grid providing neither affordable energy for local consumers nor satisfying Montgomery County’s mandate for carbon neutral by 2035.

And so, MCA, with our supporters and partners, climate change aware and proactive throughout our County, are fully in favor of meeting our climate emergency with decisive action but regard this proposal as producing more harm than good. Best efforts to discuss these concerns with local groups pushing this ZTA have not been fruitful. But we do have solutions - the report of the County's own Climate Change Task Force is ready for implementation. Among the recommendations are projects that MCA has already embarked on, including reforestation along stream buffers and wider adoption of regenerative agriculture. 
​The ZTA will be moving to the full council in September, we will be asking you to once again arise your voice for a policy that truly does promote renewable energy, natural systems and the 40 year old promise of the Agricultural Reserve.