County should re-evaluate cross-county connector decision

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

The doors will open at 6 p.m.; come early and sign up to speak. The Sierra Club and more than 20 other environmental organizations are reasonably asking that there be a full environmental impact statement completed before permitting decisions are made.

There is a clear need for an EIS for this new 6.5-mile, four-lane highway proposed in the watershed of the valuable and vulnerable Mattawoman Creek. The proposed highway is a fully county-funded road that would impact over seven acres of wetlands directly and still more wetlands indirectly. Probably because no state or federal funds are involved, an EIS is not a given. Instead the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is preparing an environmental assessment which will provide the basis for either requiring an EIS or issuing a finding of no significant impact which would allow the permit to be issued.

It would be good if we could see this hearing as an opportunity for a re-evaluation of the county’s direction.

Do the citizens want to speed up massive car-dependent sprawl development, or would we like to switch our model to smart growth, transit-oriented development around transit stations connected by light rail to the Branch Avenue Metro? Would we like to speed up the loss of our forests and wetlands even though we now better understand that they help us locally fight climate change and create a more pleasant mini-climate, or would we like to pause and try to better understand the real value of Mattawoman Creek for present and future generations?

And then there is the cost, the cost of the highway and the cost of providing services for all the growth it would spur. It would be a grave mistake to keep speeding in the direction we have been unfortunately traveling for decades.

Let’s get it right by demanding an EIS. We don’t have to go over the cliff. We have a choice.

Bonnie Bick, Oxon Hill

The writer is conservation chairwoman of the Sierra Club Southern Maryland Group.