This year's Royce Hanson Award honors a rich history, lovingly preserved. MCA is proud to award the 2020 Royce Hanson Award to the Sugarland Ethno-History Project and the tireless work of their President, Gwen Reese.  

The Sugarland Ethno-History Project (SEHP) began in 1995 to document the African American community of Sugarland, founded by freed slaves in Montgomery County Maryland. SEHP promotes and highlights the experience of the African American from slavery to present day. To date the organization has collected more than 1,000+ artifacts and documents- some of which now live in the National African American Museum.  Locals will know the lovingly maintained St. Paul Community Church on Sugarland Lane. Though the original church burned down in 1871, the current structure has been standing since 1893. The extensive information on the SEHP site states, "the current structure stands as a testimony and tribute to our heritage and the founding families of the community."

When leading tours of the Ag Reserve, St Paul Community Church is a fascinating stop. Gwen ​has been gathering the stories of the many families that founded the community and kept it going with its own store, post office and school for many decades. 

In lieu of the usual in person celebration, we are planning for the planting of a sugar maple at the church and a plaque to honor SEHP's decades of work.  This dedication will take place in December, stay tuned. 

ZTA 20-01 would allow commercial solar on 3 square miles of productive farmland in MoCo's Agricultural Reserve. The ZTA is deeply flawed on many fronts. There are scant protections for forests or water quality - all while sending power not to the State Community Solar Program - but to the wider grid where it can be sold by 3rd party companies that are under investigation for predatory practices. Full Fact Sheet here.
​
Boosters of this proposal have touted the (suggestion) of  co-location of agriculture (i.e - grass that may or may not be grazed) and the requirement for certification under Maryland's Solar Pollinator Certification. This part is also deeply flawed and everyone who relies on pollinators (i.e - everyone) should be deeply concerned. 

Testimony from our friends at Audubon Naturalist Society and  Clean Water Action:

"This ZTA relies on Maryland’s solar pollinator requirements, which have been strongly protested by the beekeeping and pollinator community. As the Central Maryland Beekeepers and Maryland Pesticide Education Network have previously raised, the existing state standard allows for a solar facility to qualify as exceeding pollinator habitat standards while routinely spraying pesticides. This is unacceptable. This effectively invites pollinators to visit the habitat while poisoning them. 
​No pollinator habitat should be certified that allows the routine spraying of pollinator-killing pesticides. While the state program is flawed, Montgomery County should reject it and create their own that does not allow for the routine spraying of pesticides."

Currently, though stakeholders were assured of a task force process that would better involve farmers, the Council has instead chosen to send the proposal back to the same committee that approved it in the first place without adding substantive amendments, chaired by the sponsor of the measure - Councilmember Riemer. The potential harm to pollinators of this bill is just one of many, many issues that still need to be worked through. Please stay tuned as we navigate this process to get solar right in Montgomery County. 

A broken commitment to providing the means toward getting solar right through meaningfully committee/work group process... a process that would have addressed the concerns and suggestions from those most affected by the proposed zoning change... farm businesses. 

Council President Katz had a great opening statement on how Ag Reserve land was being considered for this project because it was cheaper and instead of the ZTA going too far he thinks it did not go far enough in getting solar arrays throughout the county, including downcounty. He raised the important point that holding these meetings by zoom and on you tube was leaving out the very people that live in the Ag Reserve and through no fault of their own have no access to broadband. In calling for a task force, he was joined by Craig Rice and Nancy Navarro. Councilmember Navarro related the story she told us on our Zoom call with her some weeks ago about the empty shelves she found on trips to the grocery store early in the pandemic while shopping for her family and how the Ag Reserve has a role to play in food security. 

​Then the waters got muddy, Council President Katz was asked to give shape to the Task Force he was proposing and Councilmembers seemed to get hung up on whether the work would be done in 2 months or 4 months and how many people would be on the committee. Councilmember Hucker, a co-sponsor of this ZTA had told us in a zoom call previously that a Task Force was the way to go as the Council was mired in so many other things at the moment. He then joined the  other councilmembers curtailing the length and breadth that task force could take until it was not a task force at all. The Council began to move away from the idea of a formal task force, Councilmembers teased amendments they had to the ZTA that were forthcoming, consensus seemed to move toward a listening session with stakeholders and then to just returning the ZTA to the committee that voted for it’s approval in the first place who would hold 3 sessions with stakeholders – probably over zoom.
​
The end result of the 180 turn from better involving stakeholders to just informally returning the issue to the same committee again to reconsider a flawed proposal caused consternation on the part of Councilmember Friedson who asked staff to weigh in on whether a vote was needed. Hearing it was not he expressed surprise and dismay that this decision could be made with out a vote.

​While in-person public meetings are not safe right now and MCA is not advocating they take place, the way that civic engagement has moved online has left out the Reserve community right at the time that a potentially disastrous proposal impacting farm economics, forest protection and water quality is speeding toward passage with the entirety of the Reserve community and a broad coalition of downcounty organizations vehemently opposed. 
​

​Where things now stand:  The ZTA will now proceed back to the committee chaired by Councilmember Riemer, the sponsor of the ZTA. We are not optimistic that CM Riemer will consider substantive changes from farmers to his proposal, if the online platform was even working to make those suggestions. At this worksession council meeting, the only non-county employees on the zoom were a solar industry representative and a representative of Sierra Club an ardent backer of this ZTA despite its impact on forests, water quality, etc. Though neither were given time to speak, there were no representatives of the farm community and the head of the office of agriculture, Jeremy Criss was not given time to speak.

“The people where the rivers blend”
“...we have grown weary of the general public’s surprising lack of knowledge about who we were and who we are. Now, we have an opportunity to change that state of affairs―to tell our story through the eyes of the Piscataway and not from another’s opinion of us―to interface with the archaeology communities as well as other sciences of the world―to speak of our ways, life, purpose, and tribal structure that forged the alliance of the different communities of the Piscataway People―to go back in time and speak on different time lines, cycles, and events that permit us the Piscataway People to be here today at this forum―to again let it be known, ‘WE ARE STILL HERE!'”
-Francis Gray, Tribal Chair or the Piscataway Conoy Tribe at the inaugural meeting of the Through Piscataway Eyes Partners, May 6, 2016

Read more about the First Peoples in Montgomery County and southern Maryland and throughout the region.
The Piscataway were a Confederacy of Tribes under the premier authority of the Tayac or Emperor. The Confederacy extended between the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay to the watershed of the Potomac River in the area now known as Virginia, and all land from the southern tip of St. Mary’s County, Maryland, north to include Baltimore, Montgomery and Anne Arundel Counties, Maryland, to include Washington D.C.


​Bethesda Beat profiles this area's First Peoples

Quick Update: 10/12 - The Council will take up ZTA 20-01 10/13 starting at 2:45 (you can find the link to watch on you tube here) - we understand that this will just be a discussion, not a vote. The full packet is here. 
There continue to be many, many problems with this ZTA - the lack of water quality and forest protections (full fact sheet here) all requiring the stakeholder involvement that will be brought by the Task Force Council President Katz will be proposing at this work session. 
Specifically, fans of pollinators (which should be everyone) should note that a landowner can still get the "Pollinator Friendly Certification" required by this ZTA by regularly spraying insecticides on the carefully chosen plants allowed by the program and actually gain points for use of herbicides (p. 27 of the packet linked above).

Update 10/5: Though many of the Councilmembers we spoke with last week are pushing to pause this ZTA so a task force can work on getting solar right in Montgomery County- the proponents of ZTA 20-01 are still instant on pushing this proposal that still lacks protections for soils, forests, water quality and regulations that would govern the cost of the resulting energy.
Please let the council hear from you yet again today before they possibly vote tomorrow - a task force is the way to make progress toward renewable energy generation that balances natural systems and food production.
We also just heard from our friends at Sugarloaf Citizens Association that the solar experts they had look over the ZTA have just published their findings - only about 4% of the energy produced under this proposal would stay in the County. (p. 8 Executive Summary)

Breaking news: ZTA 20-01 ( up-to date amended version) would have allowed 3 square miles of commercial solar arrays in the Ag Reserve without protections for productive soils, forests or water quality. Council President Sidney Katz shared news with us last Friday that the zoning change will now be taken up through participation of a task force.

Deep gratitude to all the action takers that shared their concerns with the Council. Make no mistake - the hundreds of emails sent provided the needed oomph to make our case before an understandably otherwise occupied Council. You were fact based, respectful and tenacious.

We are grateful for CM Katz's leadership in ensuring public process thoughtful and collaborative outcome. This process will afford stakeholders, notably farmers, a voice in how best to advance solar while not supplanting agriculture and damaging our critical natural resources.

While this is a welcome opportunity to get solar right in Montgomery County, concerns remain about how we balance growing food and ground mounted commercial solar.

Please take two minutes to thank the council and reiterate your concerns about this proposal.

There are many ways this ZTA lacked protections - scant protections for forests, productive soils, water quality, etc. It also lacked equity as the same 3rd party electric suppliers that would sell this power are under investigation for predatory pricing in low income communities. To take a deeper dive into all this, please see our fact sheet here.