A permit to tear down the historic home of Johns Hopkins off Reidel Road has been proposed to the county!!!:

http://www.capitalgazette.com/news/government/ph-ac-cn-hopkins-birthplace-0128-20160127-story.html

Mega Church Update:

The property on Defense Hwy owned by Winners Chapel has been placed up for sale:

https://www.facebook.com/Crofton.First/posts/959677097432772

Your Help is Needed! 2016 marks the 10 year anniversary for Crofton First. Please help make it ten more by helping with our operating costs:

https://www.gofundme.com/35ma7g

Please visit our Facebook page, where we are most active these days:

https://www.facebook.com/Crofton.First

Chesapeake Terrace Landfill

Development OK'd at Crofton Walmart site

Berkshire, who also owns the Crofton Country Club, initially planned to build a Walmart on 20 acres at 1296 Route 3 South in Crofton. But as fights between Berkshire and nearby residents continued over the years, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. pulled out in 2007 ...

>>To read the entire article, click HERE.<<

Update from the May 2nd County Council meeting:

There was an amendment to the bill to return to the original zoning for the proposed mining site on Evergreen.

The 80-acres of proposed commercial zoning for Route 3 were only reduced by 4 acres for a small lot adjacent to St Stephens Church Road.

All other cases Crofton First asked to be removed remain in the bill. The county council sat silent after Crofton First's testimony asking for these cases to be withdrawn, and then later approved an amendment (#25) that introduces more development intensity on the highway on 150 acres of land. This proposal is reported to permit 400+ units of residential, an office building and a commercial center that will wrap around the back and south side of the Waugh Chapel shopping site on Route 3. This is in addition to the expansion of the Waugh chapel shopping center already under construction. This case was not introduced and reviewed through the normal Comprehensive Zoning procedures. Instead, it was inserted into the bill by Councilman Benoit on the last possible day of bill changes, with little or no warning to interested citizen groups. Council approved the amendment, despite county zoning department's stated opposition to this change.

The combined cases for Route 3 in Bill 12-11 would now allow an increase of 230 acres in new zoning intensity on Route 3!

Please continue your calls and letters to the county council to let hem know you don't want Route 3 to turn into the new “ Ritchie Highway ” of the county!!

The county is currently going through its process of comprehensive rezoning and evaluating requests for (mostly upzonings) throughout the county. Last night, the county council discussed the proposed upzonings in Districts 1 and 4. District 4 includes most of West County , including Gambrills, Odenton, and northern parts of Crofton. Currently, there are 23 zoning change requests. Not all will be of concern, but some certainly are, and can negatively impact Route 3.

Below are links to the county resources about the upzoning being requested in District 4. We ask that you review these requests and give us feedback about any concerns.

http://www.aacounty.org/ CountyCouncil/pendingLegis.cfm

goto:
http://gis-world.aacounty.org/ crzgoogle/

Select district 4 on the left panel (the district now being considered for zoning changes)

Zoom into route 3 area of interest

You will see tabs with red numbers, when you double-click one of the numbers a window will pop-up, see the example attachment.

You can then select html link which provides some text about the case (but still not that much)

You can also select PDF link which will show a more detailed map of the site and zoning boundaries the county prepared for the case. Thank you to all who came out to the Fly Ash Update Meeting at Perry's in Odenton.

Here is a news article about the meeting, including video of Crofton First's own Madonna Brennan discussing the issues at hand, and the feel of the meeting.

http://crofton.patch.com/articles/fiery-forum-tackles-fly-ash-concerns#video-5310306

New studies show fly ash contamination in Gambrills is heading towards public water aquifers!

As promised to our yahoo group members, we are posting two separate reports that were done in December 2010 by both Johns Hopkins University and Tufts University on the Analysis of Fly Ash Contamination of our Regional Aquifers.

It is a lot of reading with a lot of technical information, but the conclusion gathered in the Garven report is as follows: "From the hydrogeologic model, the predicted travel time for aqueous contaminants in the unconfined Magothy aquifer to reach the underlying Upper Patapsco aquifer is approximately 15 years, since the placement of fly ash in shallow quarry pits. Contaminants will enter the Lower Patapsco aquifer in about 50 years. Assuming fly ash leachate was first generated in 1995, the groundwater velocities indicate the arrival of contaminants by about 2010 in the Upper Patapsco aquifer and by about 2045 in the Lower Patapsco aquifer."

Note: there are public water wells in the Upper Patapsco aquifer in Anne Arundel county, but not in the Crofton-area. However, most of our public water in Crofton and Gambrills does come from the Lower Patapsco aquifer.

Here are the reports:

Garven report Dec 6 2010

Bouwer report Dec 10 2010

If you are not already on our yahoo group and wish to keep in the loop, please join by clicking on the link in the upper right corner of this page, and following directions. You do not need to have a yahoo email to join.

Latest news articles about the fly ash issue:

Who's Watching the Watchers? by Fred Tutman

The Capital article 1.4.11

Baltimore Sun article 12.30.10

Letters from County Executive Leopold to MDE, and to the county's department of Inspections and Permits:

Leopold to MDE

Leopold to county dept IandP

Thanks to all who came out to the May 13th meeting with MDE to discuss the mining permit and Waugh Chapel II. We are working with state legislators to get another meeting, one with a panel who can answer your questions, so stay tuned!

You can view the Capital article written about the meeting here:

Residents bemoan fly ash contamination

And if you couldn't attend, you may view videos from the meeting here:

VIDEOS_MAY13_MDE

Questionaire for residents affected by the fly ash contamination:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/22MK6J9

In other news, Crofton First has obtained transcripts which state the landowner of the big box case feels Crofton "needs" a Wal-Mart!

Unfortunetly, the administrative law judge ruled in favor of MDE/1691 Big-Box case on the wetlands in December. The Crofton First board is working with the lawyer who ran the appeal to see what measures can be taken now.

Fly Ash Re-disturbance issue

A substantial amount of fly ash will need to be disturbed on the site in Gambrills to make way for the Waugh Chapel South shopping center. According to MDE documents, BBSS has requested:
* 75,000 tons of fly ash to be removed/disturbed for South Village construction

* Documents seen so far indicate removal & redisposal on-site without following new state-wide fly ash regulations adopted by MDE.

* Construction procedures have already been approved by MDE. The public never were provided an opportunity to comment.

75,000 tons =3750 trucks!

How you can help!

SEND EMAIL TO: MDE Director Shari Wilson at stwilson@mde.state.md.us and cc the attorney generals office at oag@oag.state.md.us

AND ASK FOR:

1) Complete a proper off-site monitoring network to determine true size & shape of contamination.
2) Have a professional, "worse-case" scenario study done for any possible impacts to the public well system ~ 1 mile down-gradient from the site.
3) Regular public communication about the clean-up efforts & establishment of citizen panel to interface directly with MDE.
4) Public meeting on fly ash relocation process, to allow the community to ask questions about the details of what is to be expected.

To learn more about the fly ash issue in Gambrills, see Crofton First's Tim Berkoff's slideshow presented to the GCC this month: Oct2009 slides

Please support an Overlay District for Route 3!!

What is an overlay district?--click here to find out.

Fly Ash Legislation

Read The Capital's February 11th article, featuring Tim Berkoff of Crofton First, on fly ash legislation: click here

Deal reached in fly ash lawsuit!

The Capital article

The Crofton First Yard Sale Planning Team is looking for members to make the next yard sale a great event. If you would like to join, please send an email to croftonfirst@gmail.com

Deal Reached in Fly Ash Lawsuit for Gambrills residents

Constellation to pay $45M in damages, restoration (11/01/08)

Constellation Energy and lawyers in a class-action lawsuit announced that a settlement package worth $45 million was made in a case filed by Gambrills residents.

This was made possible with the help of the Murphy Firm and Crofton First!

Fly Ash News

Cleanup of Fly Ash Dumpsite Ordered - from the Washington Post

Airborne fly ash concerns residents - The Capital Online Sept. 27 in PDF format

Gambrills Well Water Investigation

From the Anne Arundel County Department of Health

Get Educated on Fly Ash in Maryland

Originally printed in the Baltimore Sun, you can download the PDF version here.

Letter to the Editor

Read Dick Lahn's August 13, 2007 letter to the Capital Gazette regarding the former Wal-Mart site.

The site as it looked 3 decades ago.

Crofton First

Promote Smart Growth