This year SB 931 - the Renewable Energy Certainty Act passed, allowing commercial solar on up to 5% of prime soils in each Maryland county - that is 5000 acres of the Ag Reserve. Chaberton officials were flaunting their influence on this bill when farmer advocates were denied a seat at the table. 

Chaberton Sugarloaf and Ramiere  (not subject to provisions of SB 931) approved by PSC
​In her decision approving both Chaberton solar projects in the Reserve the Public Service Commission judge imposed conditions that were recommended by the Department of Natural Resources’ Power Plant Research Program and the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission, namely that Chaberton (a) submit its agrivoltaics plan to MoCo at least 30 days before operation, (b) provide an annual report to the MoCo Attorney General and M-NCPPC regarding its agrivoltaics activities and its efforts to encourage continued farming onsite, and  (c) update the plan every five years or whenever a change occurs in the agrivoltaics activity.
 
Those conditions, the judge said, were the “bare minimum,” and she added several more, the most significant of which is this:
 
Chaberton shall obtain financial surety in the form of a bond or letter of credit from a financial institution in an amount not less than $500,000 payable to Montgomery County, in the event the Commission makes a finding that Project Owner failed to ensure continued use of Agrivoltaics as defined by PUA § 7-306.2(a)(2) throughout the life of the Project.
 
Here is the enforcement mechanism:  if Chaberton (or the new owner buying Chaberton out) fails to maintain agrivoltaics on the property – which in this case means sheep grazing (the applicant's only stated viable ag use)– then MoCo, PPRP, “or any other Party to the case” – which includes intervenors (MCA, SCA, MC Farm Bureau, MAP) – may notify “the Project’s Representative who will have 45 days” to advise the Commission how it is dealing with the matter.  Then, presumably, if the Commission finds that the Owner “failed to ensure continued use of agrivoltaics,” the surety (i.e., the company issuing the bond) would be required to pay MoCo the $500,000 bond. 


Intervenors will seek clarity, through the provision for appeal, regarding both the project approval and the enforcement of these conditions including mandatory inspections. Moreover, the penalty, if levied, should be directed to the County's agricultural preservation fund.


Stay tuned.
 ​

​Farm and Civic Groups Issue Joint Statement Calling for Ag-Centered Agritourism
 
As state and Montgomery County officials explore possible new definitions of and regulations on agritourism, four groups representing farmers and county residents call for support of agriculture itself to be clearly prioritized as interest grows in non-farm activities in the County’s highly praised Agriculture Reserve.   
 
The group statement  from the MoCo Farm Bureau, Montgomery Ag Producers, MCA and Sugarloaf Citizens Association comes as two key Montgomery County Council committees (Econ and PHP) meet on November 12 for briefing and discussion  about this issue. The Council’s discussion is, in part, prompted by a detailed 36-page state report issued in October (Statewide Guidance and Analysis: Maryland’s Value-Added Agriculture and Agritourism) that probed emerging challenges to and opportunities for farm operations.      
 
Landowners and farmers statewide have been enhancing revenue for years by building new markets for their products and new activities on their farms. In Montgomery County’s 93,000-acre Ag Reserve, hundreds of thousands of visitors flock every year to farms to buy fresh local produce; attend harvest festivals, educational tours, and equestrian events. Agritourism builds greater understanding about how food is produced and why it is important to support a strong local food system.
Promoting competition for land from distinctly non-agricultural commercial uses does not support the Ag Reserve and the local agricultural economy. Rather, it undermines it, the groups say. 

Topics raised fell under the following categories:
​
Water Resources: 
-Care for the Aquifer, the only source of water for the Reserve with concern expressed about PFAS contamination and hurdles to testing. 

Farmer Support: 
-How we connect youth with farming as a career and increase ag literacy among young people (Maryland Ag Education Foundation is one solution supported by buying Ag Tags) 
-Chesapeake Fibershed is connecting farmers in the region and has upcoming local events.
- Connect new farmers with support - an incubator floated as a solution. 
-Asking the county to step up to fill gaps in food bank procurement of local food crops so food banks can meet the needs of the county's diverse population and support local farms at the same time. 
 
The Future of the Ag Reserve: 
- Investment from outside the Reserve is resulting in uses unbalanced with active farming. Zoning needs to be clear and enforced.
-An increasing number and increasing scale of alcohol venues have lead to concerns about impacts ranging from safety on roads to impervious surfaces and groundwater over-use. 
- More support is needed for table crop production to meet the Reserve's purpose with a national food system under stress and the added impacts of tariffs.  
- A better alignment toward a "responsibility" of Reserve residents to be involved in Agriculture. 

MCA staff put in a plug for Land Link Montgomery, Good Gift Groundwater Campaign and ReLeaf native forest replating programs, along with PLENTY magazine.

Thanks to Bally Cliff for hosting us and all of you for providing such a delicious spread of potluck goodies. Thanks to  County Executive Elrich and Councilmember Balcombe for attending.

Photos from our Facebook page including photos from the county photographer.

On September 25 the Planning Commission held a public hearing on the Clarksburg Sector Gateway Plan. In the build out of Clarksburg residents have had to advocate for carefully balancing development and the fragile watershed around Ten Mile Creek and Little Seneca Reservoir - the County's backup water supply for 4.2 Million in the region. This area is known as the Clarksburg Special Protection Area (or SPA) and it has taken advocates like you to be sure that protection for forests and water quality in this special area are centered in decisions about development. 
The County Executive weighed in here. 

​Please see this action alert from our partners at Friends of Ten Mile Creek for more. 
Here is the testimony we signed on to with our partners 

​Hyperscale data center projects are already in planning or are underway in Frederick, Prince George’s, and Montgomery Counties. There is an urgent need to bring together and amplify voices across the state to measure, learn and understand the impact of the industry, how local governments are coping and ensure that community’s benefit.

There is a lot we don't know - a few things we do know about the needs of data centers: 

• Many thousands of gallons of potable water to cool equipment 24/7
• Large areas of land to site warehouses - often taking farmland and open space
• Each data center has the constant, round the clock power needs of a small city - ratepayers can expect to see increases up to 70% in their bills in the next 5 years.
• When power can't come from the grid - that constant power comes from high emissions diesel generators.

In Montgomery County, a data center site along the C+O Canal has been given preliminary approval without providing data on how many data centers will be at the site, much less river water or electricity used for these highly consumptive uses. 

Today, six organizations from across Maryland have joined together to form
the Maryland Data Centers Analysis Group.
MCA joins: 
Envision Frederick County
The Sugarloaf Alliance
The Fellowship of Scientists and Engineers
Sustainable Hyattsville
The Tri-County Coalition 

Maryland state Sen. Karen Lewis Young (D-District 3) sponsored a bill during the 2025 legislative session that would have created a study about the economic, energy and environmental consequences of data center development in the state.
That bill was vetoed by Gov. Wes Moore, who cited financial strain on Maryland and uncertainty about receiving funding from the federal government as his reasons for doing so. 

We are honored to join our collaborators from across the region to gather the facts around this brand new, unregulated land use to balance it with important commitments to farms, forests, water and the climate. 

Press release
Frederick News Post Coverage

With the passage of SB931 5% of each Maryland county's protected areas (farmland, stream buffers and forests) are now prioritized for solar production. That comes out to about 100,000 acres statewide. 
Here in the Ag Reserve the number looks to be around 5,000 acres.

In 2021, a workgroup of stakeholders - solar industry reps, farmers, conservationists convened to craft ZTA 20-01 that balanced the scales - allowing solar on Reserve lands for the first time but keeping it off prime soils (class 1+2). This kept our very best soils for active ag within the boundaries of the nation's foremost farmland protection effort - it just makes sense. 

The industry then and now are saying that this ZTA ostensibly killed solar in Montgomery County. Untrue. Allow us to explain: 

1. 3000+ acres of Ag Reserve land 2 Miles from transmission lines are available for solar under ZTA 20-01 
In the GIS mapping done in support of the ZTA, county planners found that there are 445 properties totaling 4462 acres that meet all of the ZTA's standards (not prime soils, unforested, no steep slopes, no stream buffers). At the time, County leaders looking to open the Reserve without conditions were looking for a 1800 acre cap on solar in the Reserve. Here is the map of soils and screenshot shared in the Ag Advisory Committee by Office of Agriculture in 2021 listing the GIS planners and their findings: 

When you zoom out further from substations there are a total of 4,462 acres available in 5acre+ parcels on 445 properties. 

2. Large rooftops are plentiful for Solar throughout the County
The GIS data also shows that large rooftops (think warehouses and retail space) are plentiful in the County - offering up another 1600+ acres of solar production as shown in the table below from Planning. Not listed here - another 1,415 Acres underneath PEPCO owned transmission lines - areas already cleared of trees and not being farmed. Source: MoCo Planning Staff

4. Large parking garages and parking lots are plentiful throughout the county
 6,478.15 acres of surface parking lots and 102 acres of parking garages exist in the county. Of these the County itself controls 770 acres of parking lots and 17 acres of parking garages. Dig into the numbers from planning here Solar parking lot canopies are an emerging way to deploy solar that keeps cars cool while harnessing what would otherwise be a heat island. Below: The solar canopy at the Gaithersburg Public Service Office - powering the equivalent of 662 homes per year. This is one of many solar installations on county property totaling 7.6 MW of solar installed by the County with more planned. 

3. Private Solar is booming in Montgomery County - we have the second highest total solar output in the state (behind PG) at 271 MW. MoCo has also made strides to make solar easier to get - becoming the only municipality in the country to achieve a SolSmart designation from the Department of Energy. Below - a map showing 2020 levels of residential and commercial solar from Montgomery County DEP

We are working with Farmers for Rural Maryland (FARM) of the Eastern Shore to gather as many signatures as possible. The process is rather lumpy, to add your name to this effort please carefully complete the following steps: 
​
1. READ THE DIRECTIONS FIRST - your signature could be discounted for any number of reasons. It needs to be printed, signed properly and sent to our friends in Centerville (ideally popping in the mail by Tuesday by 5) to make the deadline.
The pages you must print front and back are here

2. Sign Properly and Gather Signatures from Friends/Neighbors properly - again, please read the instructions.

3. Send it -quick! (if you don't sign in person) Refer to the instructions for the address and include your phone number in any mailings you send to FARM if they have questions.  At this point - visit Lewis/ Farm and Home to sign in person.

That address is: QACA/FALSTAD, P.O. Box 157, Centreville, MD 21617


4. Let us know you took action.  With how low tech this process is, we have no way of tracking how we are doing toward the goal of 20k signatures. Once you send your signatures, take one minute to let us know right here. 

Where to even begin with this post from Chaberton Energy? This is the same company seeking to end run the Montgomery County master plan and site solar on the Ag Reserve's very best soils. To call it tone deaf is generous. 

The Hamilton reference is apt - "But no one else was in the room where it happened..." the solar companies were there, while civic groups representing environmental concerns and Maryland's #1 industry - Agriculture - could not even get a meeting with sponsors. The lawyer for one Maryland Solar company was there because he is also the Senate President and had a major hand in crafting this bill. 

SB931, The Renewable Energy act does not "protect" agricultural lands - but instead prioritizes solar on 100,000 acres (5% of each County's priority preservation areas) of land that taxpayers paid for to be preserved in perpetuity. This includes around 5000 acres of Montgomery County's Ag Reserve. 

And it's not just the 100k acres. The extremely high prices promised by solar companies (including Chaberton, see below) are sending farmland prices even further out of reach for farmers that want to grow food and fiber. 

In the Ag Reserve - an acre goes for around $200/year. These companies are offering 10 and 20 times that. Now we hear companies are offering flat rate bonuses on top of $10,000. The diverse land seekers looking for land through our Land Link program are not offering a bonus to lease land to grow local food. Established Farmers in the Ag Reserve are already loosing leases to solar developments. 

One day remains to participate in a long shot referendum effort to get this bill in front of the voters. Click here to learn more and take part. 

 Thanks to all that joined or watched the Poolesville public hearing on the water supply. The full recording of the hearing is above. 


The Town contractor’s 45 minute presentation highlighted differences in process and
conclusions with the research/reporting conducted by hydrogeologist Patrick Hammond. There are consequential differences in their respective methodology and emphasis as to how various factors affect groundwater availability in Poolesville. Mr. Hammond’s 15 minute power point presentation slides  provides a history of the town’s municipal water supply and a summary of his report  without commentary about the town contractor’s data and methodology. He did, however, provide some responses to the contractor’s presentation after the public meeting. A summary of those points with context follows.

Climate Change: a key difference in methodology
Background: The primary goal of the MCA groundwater study  prepared by
hydrogeologist Pat Hammond is to employ current modeling/data to provide best information as to guide how collaboratively steward the sole source groundwater aquifer that supplies water to over a third of the county’s landmass – Montgomery County’s Agricultural Reserve, rural municipalities and edge communities. Mr. Hammond’s Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) study “The Effect of Climate Change on Maryland’s Water Supplies” was the catalyst for our more locally focused study utilizing the solid water system record keeping of the town of Poolesville. Mr. Hammond’s published MDE study cites the Interstate Commission on the Potomac River Basin’s modeling on how climate change will affect regional water supplies.
The town hydrogeologist noted in her presentation that climate change is “complicated” and that the  "MDE is not requiring municipalities to consider climate change in water management at this time due to uncertainty.” This contention, without reference documentation, seems at odds with State reports/literature.
Here are relevant MDE resources regarding recommendations for safeguarding water supplies to address climate change:
Here are relevant MDE resources regarding recommendations for safeguarding water supplies to address climate change. Here are the resources from UMD Extension. 

The Interstate Commission on the Potomac River Basin (ICPRB) has conducted extensive modeling that forecasts climate change effect on regional water supplies. The WSSC has been working to put failsafe plans in effect to address these coming changes and any potential for water system disruption that will challenge their ability to meet water demand at various times. See press event from 2024
 
To be clear, while there are some data analysis differences between the two hydrogeologists, the primary substantive difference hinges on how we should account for the effects of a changing climate on water availability/well yields. Mr. Hammond notes that the town contractor in their reporting factored in an increase in future water use due to climate change based on 30 days of above 100 degree temperatures annually but then the town contractor used only 5 days of above 100 degree temperatures when analyzing the effect on well yields. Mr. Hammond’s report factors in 30 days of above 100 degree temperatures in the future to determine the effect (evapotranspiration etc.) on well yields. If we are to employ no regrets land use planning and decision making, this issue matters.


The Degradation of Horsepen Branch
Hydrogeologist Pat Hammond has raised important concerns that the Town’s continued reliance on a historically granted emergency overallocation (more than their permit allowed in a single watershed) to supply the population (at that point in time) with water has resulted in severe impairment of Horsepen Branch (flows south of Poolesville to the Potomac). Poolesville’s contractor did not address this issue. To date, the Town has not addressed the stream degradation or their continued reliance on the emergency over allocation as relates to future water consumption due to growth.


A town resident put it well in his questions after the presentation - if there is disagreement in the science and the Town's models say everything is fine and Mr. Hammond's models say we need to act quickly  to avert serious issues- residents trust their leaders to take the prudent and conservative path that ensures resources remain abundant in the future. That path requires action.
For residents on wells - our recent webinar on well care is a great place to start learning about the aquifer and how to steward your own well for the future. 

Please plan to join your neighbors at an important informational meeting on the future of the Poolesville Sole Source Aquifer, the only viable water source for the town. 

Poolesville Town Hall
April 21, 7pm 

From the Town site: 
The Commissioners of Poolesville will be holding an informational hearing to discuss water capacity.
Hydrologists Kathy Mihm and Pat Hammond along with Montgomery County Alliance’s Executor (sic) Director Caroline Taylor will present and discuss recent water capacity studies.
The studies, derived from historical pump data, aquifer models and specific scientific calculations, will be discussed along with solutions for ensuring an adequate water supply for the future.
The informational hearing will be held on April 21, 2025, 7:00pm, at Townhall. It will also be available on YouTube, both live stream and archived for later viewing.


YouTube Channel

The background - in 2023 MCA funded a study into the future yields of the town's water supply undertaken by seasoned state hydrogeologist Pat Hammond. The results of this study show that current overallocation of water to the town have had an impact on sensitive Horse Penn Branch. Looking ahead, droughts are forecasted to be more frequent and more severe. Seasonal conservation measures will keep the currently sized town population within allocated water limits but new development in the town will necessitate increased conservation measures throughout the year and may cause some wells to dry up. 

 The study results have informed MCA's Good Gift Groundwater Project seeking to raise awareness about the aquifers under our feet. Recently, the project hosted a webinar all about well care to educate homeowners. 

Here is why MCA and our partners oppose these arrays - they are attempting to override the careful policies crafted to balance solar with farming in the Ag Reserve:

Please join us either on zoom or in person for this hearing:

April 14, 2025 6:30 PM

Upper Montgomery County Volunteer Fire Department

19801 Beallsville Road, Beallsville, MD (in person) or on Zoom 


Here's How You Can Help:

• Show up! - And Bring a Friend 
  
  
• Choose to speak at the hearing (coordinate with us to be sure all topics are covered - [email protected]) 
  
  
• Can't make it? - Write in using the PSC portal (open until April  17) here and please reference Case No. 9733 (hit a snag -> [email protected])

Much more info in our recent newsletter on the previous hearing here.

More: We are working to bring balance to a bill at the General Assembly that will open virtually all forests and farms to the siting of industrial scale solar - can you take a moment to personalize a letter to your representatives. 
​

Montgomery County's own Senator Brian Feldman is carrying forward SB 931/ HB1036 The Renewable Energy Certainty Act a bill that would override all local master plan protections in the the siting of community and industrial scale solar and large battery storage installations. 

That means overriding local level protections across the state for: 
-Farms  and prime soils (stripping of topsoil is allowed)
-Forests
-Stream buffers and slopes

MCA, in partnership with 62 other local and state organizations successfully crafted a ZTA in 2021 that allowed solar in the county's Ag Reserve - notably protecting prime soils, forests and steep slopes to balance renewable energy and shared resources - allowing acreage totaling 3 square miles to be used for community solar projects in the Reserve. (That's in addition to the 187 MW total the County has generated - second highest of all MoCo Counties - data from the PSC 12/24)
  
This bill, lacking the ZTA's balanced approach, is a clear threat to the Ag Reserve, where solar developers are already proposing large arrays on prime soils in an attempt to override county zoning at the state level.  The Montgomery County Council has voted to oppose SB931.

Maryland's counties and municipalities have spent many decades rightly protecting farmland, forests and sensitive watershed areas at the taxpayer's expense. This proposal supplants every one of these priorities for the sake of solar. A broad suite of best practices for siting large scale solar that balances these commitments is readily available (see more below). Moreover, while it seems clear the solar industry had a hand in crafting this bill,  it seems no one in Annapolis consulted farmers or the myriad groups working on forest and water protection. By refusing to acknowledge the complexity of solar siting, this bill is simply raising hackles when it could be building bridges - a missed opportunity that is hindering the aim of more renewable energy.

For our part, MCA is working with local partners representing farming and environmental interests to suggest amendments that will better balance this bill.  We are gathering partner groups and will be releasing an action alert this week.

Please stay tuned. This bill is scheduled for a hearing on February 28th.

Explore More

Best Practices for siting large scale solar (hint: discouraging or prohibiting solar on forests, prime agricultural soils and stream buffers is a theme):

• Abell Foundation “Getting Solar Siting Right in Maryland”
• Farmland Solar Policy Design Toolkit (U-VT and USDA)
• “Where solar arrays shouldn’t go is as critical as where they do go” - Lee Epstein, Chesapeake Bay Foundation director of Lands Programs

More reactions to SB 931:

• WBOC: Maryland Senate Bill on Renewable Energy Sparks Debate Over Local Authority
• New Organization Farmers Alliance for Rural Maryland is pushing back against Data Centers, Battery Storage and other industrial uses on Ag Zoned lands
• Central Farm Markets: Energy Boondoggle
• Cherstertown Spy Opinion: Maryland's Legislature is failing Rural Communities
• From Delmarva Farmer: Shore growers meet to beat Maryland bill
• Baltimore Sun Opinion: Solar Sprawl is not what Maryland Needs
• Maryland Association of Counties opposes SB931 and offers amendments

MCA recently hosted a solar info session to explain the County's conditional use process for solar in the Ag Reserve and developers looking to end run the County's master plan. 

We need to deploy a lot more solar - in all the right places. Looking for ways to go solar at your farm, business, home? We hosted a number of info sessions with the MoCo Green Bank, find all the recordings here. 

In trying to remove PFAS (forever chemicals with established and sever long term health impacts) from the environment, a key vector is substances that come into contact with food, water and soils. Many pesticides are known to have large amounts of PFAS chemicals and are sprayed both in agricultural and residential settings causing huge risks across sectors. 

House Bill 386 would have phased out the pesticides with high concentrations of PFAS. However, amendments to this bill to redefine the chemical structure of what constitutes a "PFAS" forced bill supporters from environmental and civic groups to work against the bill in fear that redefining what is and is not a forever chemical had wide reaching implications in PFAS regulation both in Maryland and across the country - threatening to undo established rules on firefighting foams and the EPAs recent sweeping ruling on PFAS in water. 

The result has been bittersweet - the hijacked bill has failed to pass, but pesticides with high levels of PFAS continue to be widely used. We are proud to be part of the Smart on Pesticides Coalition

Read up on this bill at Maryland Matters

A project for 1.8 MW of solar at 17700 Barnesville Road is moving toward a conditional use hearing.  More info from the solar developer about the project here. 
The project was called the Barnesville Solar project but is now called Mountain Vale Community Solar in response to resident feedback. 

ZTA 20-01 opened the Ag Reserve to community solar arrays of under 2 MW on sub prime soils (class 3 and above) that leave forests intact and avoid steep slopes. The ZTA established a conditional use process - the same as other industrial uses in the Reserve must go through. 

MCA will be watching the development of this array but so far this project looks to meet the stipulations of County policy. A larger map showing where signs will be posted to alert neighbors is here. Note that the triangle of forested area to the right to the map belongs to the same landowner will not hold any arrays or other infrastructure. 

While this project looks to be on the right side of county policies - two other developments are threating to tip the balance between solar and agriculture in the Reserve and across the state more broadly: 

1. Solar developer Chaberton Energy is attempting to sidestep local provisions that balance solar and faming in the Reserve and taking a proposal for solar on prime soils to the state. These arrays are larger than those currently allowed and are mostly on prime class 2 soils - taking the best soils out of production for a least a generation. 

2. General Assembly bill HB1036 and SB931 would allow solar arrays on all ag soils, mature forests and stream buffers - completely upending decades of conservation efforts at the local level and overriding master plans across the state.  Learn more and take action here. 

Curious about what's in your water?

Have you ever looked at your water quality report and wondered what it really means? Or do you rely on a well and want to know how to keep your drinking water safe?

Join us for a webinar where we will share some valuable insights and answer your questions. Water Quality Specialist with UMD University of Maryland Extension, Andy Lazur, will help us break it all down.

Here is the Recording of this webinar (slides from UMD Extension's Andy Lazur here  slides from the Good Gift Campaign in MoCo Here): 

Much more information can be found at our Good Gift Project site 

This webinar and the Good Gift Project are funded through the following grants and supporters like you - we'd be honored by your tax deductible support as we expand this pilot project.

The County Executive has launched a new Climate Smart program that asks residents to commit to small changes they can make to yield big results in emissions reductions for the county. 

More Information here

More to Explore:

-We worked with the MoCo Green Bank and Office of Ag to offer webinars and other resources for going solar on your home/business/farm

-Resources for homes on well and septic on how to save water

Data Centers are an entirely new (and unregulated) land use with massive resource needs:

• Many thousands of gallons of potable water to cool equipment 24/7
• Large areas of land to site warehouses - often taking farmland and open space
• Each data center has the constant, round the clock power needs of a small city - ratepayers can expect to see increases up to 70% in their bills in the next 5 years.
• When power can't come from the grid - that constant power comes from high emissions diesel generators.

Our digital lives require cloud storage but the rise of AI has made the need for data centers explode. Developers are looking all over the country and world for suitable places to site data centers. Maryland, particularly Western Maryland, with it's proximity to Virginia's 'data center alley' is appealing to the industry. 

But we have lots of questions about just where all these resources will come from and who ends up footing the bill. 

​That is why we support the Data Center Impact Analysis and Report Act (( HB270  SB116)) we are working with state and local partners in the Climate Justice Wing of the Maryland Legislative Coalition to support this and other common sense bills to protect our environment. We will be asking for folks to write in and testify on this bill - for now, please check out our fact sheet. 

How we use our prime agricultural lands matters. Flat, sunny, well drained soils are at a premium. Despite a compromise allowing solar in the Ag Reserve on non-prime soils as a conditional use in 2021, 2 solar projects are now applying to the state to end run the County's protections for prime soils in the Ag Reserve. All while solar companies inflate land values, putting acreage further out of reach for the new, diverse crop of local farmers in the only area set aside for farming. Above - a postcard to Ag Reserve residents offering 20 times what local farmers are paying per acre of land. ​

Background: 
Chaberton Energy has applied directly to the Maryland Public Service Commission (PSC) for two large solar projects  of 3-4 mw facilities in the Reserve - almost entirely on on prime farm soils in contradiction to the County’s zoning provisions. Much more about the Sugarloaf and Ramire proposals here.

Next Up 
The project proceeds at the PSC, MCA with partners have been granted intervenor status and we are mounting a defense of prime soils and our master plan. 

​Bonus: Misconceptions at the Planning Board
The ZTA is the factor preventing solar projects - false
 At the 1/9 hearing the Planning Board discussed whether and how to ask the Council to revisit the zoning provision for solar in the Reserve - ZTA 20-01 – with several board members arguing that only two projects being built in the Reserve since 2021 is cause for opening all prime soils to the industrial use.

The Planning department's own report (p.9) in December 2023 identified that zoning is not the central  issue holding back construction of new arrays. Instead, a long waitlist for interconnection with the utility and grid operator are the largest hurdles to making proposed arrays a reality. 

In fact PJM - the grid operator for much of the Mid-Atlantic - has the most severe backlog of new generation projects of any grid operator in the country - "projects entering the queue today have little chance of coming online before 2030."
All the same, more projects are being proposed through the county's conditional use process - including on sub-prime soils in Barnesville.

Agrivoltaics make this an Accessory to Farming - false
In the September 5 public hearing the planning board had asked the applicant, Chaberton Energy, to come up with an agrivoltaics plan. Their draft request for proposals (RFP) is here. 
The RFP visions that farmers might grow crops in the 7 feet between arrays and harvest them by hand. Water might be available - it might not be and no plants can be over 2.5' high.  It is clear that farming is an afterthought here - an opportunity to say that farming opportunities were offered but no farmers were able to meet the criteria of what becomes the industrial use supplanting agriculture.

The RFP says that this offer of free "farmland" in 7-foot strips will make a difference for the large number of farmers seeking affordable land. All while Chaberton is seeking approval for a project that takes prime soils out of farming for at least a generation in conflict with the master plan and drives up the cost of other unencumbered farmland that might have been available for these producers. (Check out our Land Link program to see local farmers seeking long term leases).

What do Ag Reserve farmers think about agrivoltaics? The Office of Ag says local farmers, like many, are seeking more data before embracing farming under solar arrays. OAGs thoughts about the Agrivoltaic RFP here.  The office wants to be clear that the office did not help draft the plan or sign off on the project in any way. 

MCA and colleagues  have  repeatedly asked that the County invest in a full-fledged agrivoltaics demonstration project on county land that can provide key data on whether compatibility of table crop and livestock production and solar arrays in our specific growing conditions.
Board member Hedrick said, “ we're talking about allowing a use on the AG Reserve that's a better use than anything that's currently going on on the acreage that's being proposed. Right here no one's talking about taking anything [sic] think about offering up an option for use of the AG Reserve which is inarguably both economically and environmentally a better use than most of it's currently put to.” 
This view represents a lack of knowledge of the agricultural production, supporting businesses, and ecological services that serve in the Reserve.

MCA has undertaken the Good Gift Campaign - building awareness and action around the Piedmont Sole Source Aquifer - the only potable source of water for residents in the Ag Reserve. 
This project kicked off with a baseline survey of county residents - check out the video above to hear our groundwater program coordinator Abby Mann go through the results. 

Abby's slides here
​
Infographic of the results here

Press Release Here

Much more about the Good Gift Groundwater Campaign here