Northern ICC description - 2

[mrobi...@igc.org]

WHERE DOES THE ICC GO FROM HERE?
"end on construction would not effectively mitigate the impacts of the
Master Plan Alignment. Alternatives are available that would effectively
avoid or minimize these impacts. EPA's position on the Master Plan
Alignment remains unchanged. We would however like to reemphasize that EPA
is committed to working with the Federal Highway Administration and the
State Highway Administration to identify an environmentally sound
transportation solution to the project's identified purpose and need that
may utilize the less environmentally sensitive portions of the Master Plan
Alignment."
-- Sept 8 letter from EPA Region 3 Administrator W. Michael McCabe to Ms.
Gail Ewing, Montgomery County Council.

On September 11, at the Montgomery County Planning Board hearing on their
hybrid options, the SHA revealed that they're still interested in blasting
through Mill Creek / Rock Creek. SHA officials unveiled charts showing the
different costs and impacts (as they estimate) of building the Master Plan
through Mill Creek / Rock Creek, an alignment that used longer bridges
instead of fill dirt, and bridges over much of the terrain in the park – the
so-called end-on construction that ICC proponents have urged for years.
SHA presented charts comparing the impacts of the new ICC through Rock
Creek Regional Park and through Spencerville — to get a copy of Thursday's
handouts, contact M-NCPPC's ICC Liaison Joe Anderson at (301) 495-4534.
The SHA's analysis compared building the Master Plan Alignment Rock Creek
Option "as shown in DEIS," "bridges through all fill areas in park" (where
fill dirt would prop up the road over valleys), and with "bridges through
entire park." This chart claimed that the one endangered species SHA knows
about there (this is an undercount) would not be impacted by bridging the
entire park even though Carex hirtifolia - Pubescent sedge grows on a hill
top that would be wiped out even if the road was bridged over the nearby
short, steep valley.
The idea of "bridging" an entire park is absurd. The Mill Creek area has
hills nearly 100 feet high, which is why the MPA would cut up to 40 feet
deep into the Earth. The SHA has three options here for road construction:
(1) build a nearly 100 foot high bridge over the main stem of Rock Creek,
which would be extremely expensive, (2) build low bridges with steep road
sections in and out of the valleys, which is not good for speeding toxic
waste hauling trucks, or (3) build low bridges and blast through the hill
sides. The numerous north-south stream valleys that are headwaters for
Rock Creek, the Anacostia River and the Patuxent River cannot ALL be bridged
– it is technically impossible unless an 18 mile long bridge is designed,
which would be absurdly expensive and silly.
Even if high bridges are designed, Section 4(f) clearly demands avoidance
before mitigation efforts are required. While longer bridges would somewhat
reduce the sedimentation impacts of placing fill dirt into wetlands and
stream banks, it would not solve the problems of deforestation, fragmenting
habitat, air pollution, toxic road run off, noise, pile driving into
bedrock, and numerous other impacts. (See http://www.igc.org/icc370/end.htm
for more about "end-less" construction.) Longer bridges with less fill dirt
and retaining walls to minimize the footprint of the ICC would not protect
forest dependent wildlife, especially neotropical migratory songbirds.
SHA's charts also purported to compare a "bridged" hybrid "parkway" against
the original hybrid proposal for using the "Rock Creek Partial Park
Avoidance Option." This table claimed that building this ICC section and
extending the Mid County Highway into it would only take 23 homes, even
though SHA knows that a new interchange between the two would take another
15 to 20 homes more (there is no right-of-way for this there).

As shown in DEIS Bridges through all fill areas in park Bridges through
entire park
Right of way cost $8.0 million $7.6 million $7.2 million
Engineering and construction $56 million $78.6 million $113.5 million
Total $64 million $86.2 million $120.7 million

source: Summary of Estimated Impacts, from September 8 letter from Neil J.
Pedersen, Director, Office of Planning and Preliminary Engineering, State
Highway Administration to William Hussman, Chairman, Montgomery County
Planning Board

This chart shows that the SHA is considering spending $60 million for extra
bridges. Assuming the Partial Park Avoidance option would take 40 homes
worth 1/3 million each, that would require an extra $12 million in
relocation costs. The Partial Park Avoidance option itself would cost $79
million (not including the full costs of right-of-way, since SHA's
calculations deliberately ignore the Mid County / ICC interchange).
Blasting the ICC through Mill Creek with extra bridges would cost tens of
millions more than the community destroying Partial Park Avoidance option,
which would take a lot of sales tax revenues at the Konterra megamall to pay
back this subsidy!

SHA's charts examining the hybrid ICC deliberately excluded any cumulative
and indirect effects on parkland, forest and wetlands as required by NEPA.
Even the M-NCPPC staff estimated these indirect impacts in their analysis of
the DEIS, noting that forest fragmentation and downstream runoff would have
severe impacts.

At the September 11 hearing, Hussman claimed that the ICC options that
wreck the parks are the ones with the least community impacts, and vice
versa. Nothing could be further from the truth. Any version of the ICC
would cause tremendous environmental and community havoc. Some would cause
slightly more direct impact to parklands while others would take a few more
homes. But the cumulative impacts would be extreme for parks and
communities no matter where the monster goes.

Montgomery County M-NCPPC is officially discussing two flavors of this
hybrid: the "Staff Hybrid" and the "Board Hybrid." The main difference is
that the Board Hybrid would be a "true parkway" merely four lanes wide --
although it could be widened later. This so-called parkway would go
• through the heart of Mill Creek instead of the Partial Avoidance Option
• omit (for now) the extension of Mid County Highway into the ICC
• pass north of Route 198 using part of the Northern Alternative (but avoid
directly taking any WSSC property by choosing a new route just south of the
original NA route
• feed into Route 198 in P.G. County that would be converted into a limited
access highway

The Board Hybrid's southern component is identical to the original
incarnation except that it doesn't pretend to have an at-grade intersection
at Briggs Chaney Road and would not (for now) include a spur into Fairland Road.

Neither version of the Hybrid shows the NA spur to Konterra that Prince
Georges County wants.

I would be surprised if the hybrid does not mutate and grow a bit more
before next week, since the flurry of options is merely an effort to
distract from what SHA secretly wants. SHA should come clean and state
clearly what are of the components of their fall-back option. SHA officials
are supposed to be public servants, not dictators.

Over the next few weeks, the County Council, Planning Board and the State
will try to iron out how to build an ICC that neither goes through Paint
Branch Park nor next to the Rocky Gorge Reservoir. Unfortunately, none of
these government institutions are yet willing to consider not building this
Outer Beltway segment.
Unfortunately, the citizens of Montgomery and Prince Georges' Counties
cannot vote to decide if the ICC gets built or if the publicly owned
right-of-way becomes a hybrid County / State Park. Even our elected
representatives at the local, County, State and Federal levels will not make
the final decision – instead, the Federal Highway Administration makes the
"Record of Decision." County officials should listen to the M-NCPPC Natural
Resources staff who correctly noted that there are severe problems with the
ICC that cannot be mitigated no matter how much money is spent.
Current and future generations need intact ecosystems that provide clean
air and water, not another highway that would worsen sprawl, deforestation
and global warming.
Park and Planning's ICC Liaison Joe Anderson has stated that the Hybrid is
more of a "philosophical" statement than an actual study of an ICC option.
It is technically impossible for the Planning Board to take any action on
this proposal until traffic analysis is performed on this recommendation,
and a cumulative analysis is performed on its social and environmental
impacts as required by NEPA. A Community Impact Statement and visual impact
analyses, as required by the Federal Highway Administration, are needed that
documents the impact on property and aesthetic values of communities
adjacent to the proposed project. This should be performed in the
Supplemental DEIS BEFORE the Planning Board makes a formal "Build"
recommendation.

Northern Alternative Parkway?
The July 22 M-NCPPC Staff Report from Joe Anderson, chief ICC liaison at
Parking and Planning, claims that the "hybrid" would have "grade
separation/access control to maximum extent feasible" and "parkway like
design." If the hybrid ICC highway is selected with a 72 foot median strip
(which would be preservation of right of way for additional lanes), as
opposed to the narrow median strip proposed in the DEIS, a Supplemental DEIS
would be required under 40 CFR § 1502.9(c)(1)(i) before a Final EIS and
Record of Decision.
It is extremely misleading to call the ICC, regardless of alignment, a
"parkway" since it is the single biggest threat to our public parklands.
Parkways are not six (and more) lanes wide, do not have
collector-distributor lanes (like on I-270), and do not permit truck
traffic. The National Park Service will not permit an interchange between
the ICC and the Baltimore-Washington Parkway, a reason why the ICC ssends at
US 1. Public servants working at M-NCPPC should stop lying about this and
describe the ICC as a highway, an interstate, a giant boondoggle, a billion
bucks of corporate welfare for Kingdon Gould or any other term except
"parkway," unless they propose a road primarily intended for scenic driving
that would prohibit truck traffic and be owned and operated by a Park
agency, not the Maryland State Highway Administration.

Planning Board Chairman William Hussman wants the ICC to be a "true
parkway," with four lanes and no trucks. However, Rob Ritter, ICC Assistant
Project Manager, states that the SHA will not study a new highway that does
not permit trucks on it. But even if SHA policies were changed and
Hussman's preferred road was built, it would still have the same
environmental damage, especially in the Rock Creek watershed. (The "true
parkway" map shows the road slicing through the heart of Mill Creek and next
to the Rocky Gorge Reservoir, in addition to all of the other adverse
impacts in North Branch, upper Northwest Branch and elsewhere.)
But this is consistent with efforts by the County, DNR and other agencies
to call the ICC a "Greenway." (See Fairland Master Plan for a discussion of
this.) Any ICC would still destroy parks and communities!
The Baltimore Washington and George Washington Parkways might be more
pleasant routes to drive than the Capital Beltway and Interstate 95, but
they still clearcut and fragmented the forest in their path. And asphalt is
toxic no matter what the road is called.

"One of the expressed purposes of the M-NCPPC, as stated in its legal
charter, is to protect the stream valleys leading out of the District of
Columbia." (M-NCPPC Staff Review: ICC Alternatives, July 1997, Park Review
Factors, p. 5)
Endorsing any version of the ICC would violate this public trust.

The July 24 M-NCPPC recommendation for the hybrid stated several goals:

• "avoiding the need for a supplemental DEIS" (there are many reasons for a
SDEIS, the hybrid would add NEW reasons)
• connecting the existing ICC section (I-370) to an east-west highway (the
ICC by any other name would still smell as bad)
• "maximum park and special protection avoidance" (which is not accomplished
by the hybrid)
• "network improvement to address regional circulation needs" (no traffic
analysis was conducted for the hybrid)

The "design concept" would have

• six lanes (until the median strip was used for more lanes – the Beltway
once had a median strip)
• "grade separation / access controlled to maximum extent feasible"
• "Parkway like design" (parkways do not permit trucks, and the 72 foot
median would be reserved right-of-way for additional lanes)
• Consideration of toll/HOV lanes on access controlled section (a toll road
without tollbooths)

A Tollroad Without Tollbooths – Big Brother Loves the ICC
On Tuesday, July 29, at the monthly update forum, State Highway
Administration official Rob Ritter (Asst. Project Manager for the ICC)
explained how cars would be assessed tolls while driving on the new highway.
I asked if he would explain how the SHA could propose to build a toll road
that did not include any tollbooths. While electronic toll cards have been
proposed like on the Dulles Toll Road, the ICC Draft Environmental Impact
Statement did not explain how motorists without these electronic cards would
pay the ICC tolls without tossing their dimes and quarters into a tollbooth.
(The Dulles Toll Road did not remove the tollbooths when electronic toll
collection began for frequent users.)
Ritter responded that automated cameras would be used to take pictures of
EVERY license plate for EVERY car that drove onto the ICC, the license plate
recorded, and a bill sent to the owner of the vehicle. Ritter did NOT
explain how the owner of the vehicle could be automatically proven to be the
driver (guilty until proven innocent?), how cars with two or more people
(who would be exempt from the toll) would be excluded from the system, or
the cost of establishing this new bureaucracy. He did claim that this could
be accomplished by 2020 AD, although did not want to answer if this
permanent surveillance system would be ready for ICC opening day.
Public reaction to revelations that the Maryland Department of
Transportation Motor Vehicle Administration sells names and addresses of
motorists was almost universally negative. I wonder what the reaction would
be if this far more intrusive Big Brother scheme is built? Perhaps the ICC
could be called the "J. Edgar Hoover Memorial Highway." Oliver North could
shred the ceremonial ribbon on opening day.

Shady Grove Road Interchanges
The Staff Recommendation does not identify if an 8 lane wide interchange
would still be used between existing I-370 and Shady Grove and if a partial
interchange from Shady Grove eastbound to the ICC – neither of which is
shown on the glorious, sacred, inviolate Master Plan. The Army Corps of
Engineers noted in their comments that the partial interchange between Shady
Grove and east bound ICC would likely add a new loop ramp in the Mill Creek
wetlands at a future date (the proposed design would have southbound Shady
Grove traffic make a left turn to access eastbound ICC). An additional ramp
would probably also need to be built near the existing Shady Grove / I-370
interchange because no ramp between eastbound Shady Grove and westbound
ICC/370 is shown in the DEIS maps.
Citizens have been told that the Hybrid would not include special HOV / bus
ramps at major interchanges, which would slightly reduce the environmental
impact. But this is itself an admission of the absurdity of this greenwash
effort.

Mill Creek Wetlands Destroyed
The wetland on Mill Creek west of Shady Grove Road (wetland 1D) was one of
the few cited in the DEIS as having "uniqueness / heritage" values on the
evaluation forms provided in the Technical Reports. Any version of the ICC
extending from existing I-370 would plow through the middle of this wetland,
disrupting the hydrology of the parts not immediately under the fill dirt.
Sedimentation from construction would slowly wreck the wetland and cause
significant downstream sedimentation and erosion from road runoff – items
not discussed in the DEIS. The neighborhood impacts in Shady Grove /
Derwood would be identical to the Master Plan Alternative – noise, smog,
reduced residential property values and increased traffic congestion.

Between Shady Grove and Redland Roads, the Hybrid ICC would obliterate a
fairly pristine but small wetland fed by small seeps and springs,
immediately east of a Mill Creek tributary. (The DEIS maps do not indicate
its name, but it is immediately next to wetland 1F at station number 175.)
This valley would be entirely filled in, and the quartz laden bedrock on
either side (station 170 and station 177) would be blown up to accommodate
the Inter County Culvert.

Rock Creek Partial Parkland Avoidance (PPA) Option
The proposed Hybrid recommends consideration of this misleading
alternative, since much of Rock Creek would still be destroyed. This would
still trash the headwaters, blow up steep slopes, put fill dirt into Rock
Creek and worst of all, has no proposals for avoiding or even reducing the
impacts to the North Branch of Rock Creek and its tributaries. The shift
north from the MPA route to the Mid County Highway reserved wrong-of-way
would spare the heart of the Mill Creek / Rock Creek forest but still damage
wetlands, springs and natural habitat.
While the DEIS does describe some aspects of this proposal (Volume 2, p.
V-29) in terms of how many homes would be displaced – and that the median
strip would have to be reduced somewhat to avoid bulldozing even more homes
– it does not say how deep the cuts into bedrock would be at the Rock Creek
crossing or how much fill dirt would be dumped into the water.
One of the homes next to the Partial Park Avoidance option is being sold by
realtor Bob DeGroot, who changed his mind about the ICC after attending the
March 23 hike through Mill Creek sponsored by the Campaign to Stop the ICC
(C-SICC). Mr. DeGroot wrote a fine letter to the editor in the Gazette
shortly afterwards stating shame on the SHA and that he supported spending
money on improved public transit instead of the ICC. Unfortunately, his
advertising flier stated that the cost is drastically reduced but neglects
to state the proximity of the ICC – a proclivity endemic in the Montgomery
and P. G. real estate industry. Fortunately, when Mr. DeGroot was informed
about the potential new route of the ICC, he took this house off the market,
telling the homeowners that their home was not sellable if an interstate
highway was planned 50 feet across the street.
The prudent and feasible method of avoiding Rock Creek Regional Park -- a
requirement under Section 4(f) -- is to study a LUTRAQ style non-highway
alternative to control sprawl development and improve public transportation.

Mill Creek - Rock Creek Should be Avoided, NOT Mitigated
The Rock Creek Regional Park Partial Park Avoidance Option does not AVOID
Rock Creek, merely mitigate it. It would still wreck the headwaters of Mill
Creek, fragment interior forest, require blasting of steep slopes next to
Rock Creek, have tremendous community impacts and would still go through the
proposed Needwood North Protection Area recommended by the Maryland
Department of Natural Resources (upstream of Redland Road and at Mid County
Highway Rock Creek crossing). The DEIS did not mention this protection area
recommendation, originally described in 1993 by the DNR (under contract to
M-NCPPC). Many more rare species are known in this area now, and its
importance to Montgomery's remaining biodiversity is extremely critical. It
is the most topographically intricate part of the entire Rock Creek
watershed (from Laytonsville to Georgetown), and perhaps the most beautiful,
too. Several of the rare species there have extremely specific habitat
requirements (such as Carex hirtifolia - Pubescent sedge) that cannot be
replaced by transplantation, as recommended by the DEIS summary book.
(Curiously, the DEIS itself did not recommend transplantation.)
Mill Creek has some of the nicest springs I've ever seen in the Washington
region, with clear flowing water and extremely uncommon species of aquatic
salamanders. It is likely that Stygobromus family amphipods are living in
several of these, since two are documented downstream along Rock Creek
(Stygobromus hayi, an officially endangered species that lives nowhere else
on Earth, and Stygobromus kenki, a candidate for federal endangered status).
The SDEIS should survey these seeps and springs for endangered amphipods,
part of nature's subtleties that are vanishing rapidly.

The DEIS does not provide any means for persons not familiar with this area
to understand its unique and significant topography.
The Rock Creek Option would have a greater impact on rare plants, require
the relocation of Mill Creek and result in a lower bridge over the Rock
Creek / Mill Creek confluence.

How Would ICC and Mid County Highways be Joined?
This shift would either have an at-grade intersection with a traffic light
or a grade separated interchange with ramps and overpasses. Neither design
is described in the DEIS. A partial interchange just east of Redland Road
between the ICC and Mid County would require displacing numerous homes (see
Station 215 in Figure V-9). This must be answered in order for the Planning
Board, reviewing agencies and the public to see what the hybrid would look
like and its impacts. Further study is clearly required, since ICC Liaison
Joe Anderson was unable to answer this basic question at the July 29 ICC
Update Forum.. Perhaps his recommendation should be called the Information
Avoidance Option.
The reserved wrong-of-way for the Mid County Highway has enough space for a
partial Mid County / ICC interchange immediately south of Magruder High
School (see map MPA-5, station 260 – note the wider property boundary as the
reserved route for Mid County approaches the Master Plan route). The hybrid
is confirmation that Mid County was always planned as an ICC feeder highway,
although the avoidance of the heart of Rock Creek would require considerable
redesign of the interchange and a few million more dollars to displace
existing residential neighborhoods. That money would be better spent on
improved Ride-On service!
It is hard to believe that SHA would want to shift the ICC here, since the
highway has been shifted in at least two places to avoid individual homes –
alterations that would cause worse impacts to streams, but streams don't
require relocation funds or vote in gubernatorial elections. (A comparison
of the "Alignment G Modified" map with the so-called Master Plan Alignment
reveals interesting discrepancies, detailed in my official comments.) SHA
still hopes to build the ICC through the heart of Mill Creek / Rock Creek,
since they do not want to displace 40 homes. SHA is trying to pit people
concerned about parks against those concerned about neighborhoods, when in
reality, ICC opponents do not want to destroy either. It's like asking the
condemned if they prefer the electric chair or lethal injection, when the
correct answer is "neither."

Blasting of Rock Creek
The Rock Creek Crossing on the of Mid County Highway / PPA route would
slice through the narrowest gorge in the entire Rock Creek watershed. This
part of the park has steep slopes exceeding 45 degrees with significant
bedrock that would require a lot of explosive blasting to cut a road into
the terrain. While the vertical alignment maps do not indicate how deep the
cuts would be next to Rock Creek, it seems obvious that the SHA would not
merely have the road arc from one side to the other of the valley, since the
preferred strategy for all options is to minimize bridge lengths, even if it
requires dumping fill dirt into pristine wetlands.
The maps of the PPA seem to show fill dirt placed directly on the west side
stream bank of Rock Creek to accommodate the bridge. Blowing up the bedrock
on either side of the creek would result in significant sedimentation to
Rock Creek, altering the hydrology of downstream wetlands.
While this area is not the widest area of Rock Creek Regional Park, it does
have uncommon species, significant habitat, hawks, songbirds, specimen trees
well over a century old and is still part of the protection area recommended
by the DNR Natural Heritage Program in 1993 and 1997. (These
recommendations are not mentioned in the DEIS.) It is a rocky, dry forest
habitat increasingly scarce in Maryland's piedmont, and an integral part of
the connecting forested corridors of the Rock Creek stream valley park system.
Section 4(f) does not merely require studies of reducing direct impacts to
parklands – it requires that all alternatives be examined. The DEIS does
not have a true "no build" nor a non-highway LUTRAQ style alternative.

Rock Creek North Branch Deserves Equal Protection
The single biggest flaw in the intent of the hybrid to achieve maximum park
protection is the complete dismissal of any value to the North Branch of
Rock Creek. The hybrid implicitly acknowledges that Maryland Natural
Heritage Program proposed Protection Areas for Mill Creek / Rock Creek,
Northwest Branch (2 locations) and Paint Branch are significant and
therefore the route should avoid these places — but it would still blast
(literally) through the heart of the proposed Rock Creek North Branch
Protection Area and cut twice across part of the one proposed for Mill Creek
/ Rock Creek.
Building any ICC route through the North Branch would require removal of a
large bedrock outcrop (Station 321 on map MPA-6), which could only be
accomplished with Alfred Nobel's famous invention. No park avoidance or
even partial park avoidance options have been considered to avoid this
beautiful forest.
All ICC routes would go immediately upstream of the single largest wetland
on the entire ICC route (1Y), a wetland one of the "biostitute" consultants
told me was his personal favorite that was studied. This forest has a place
where the nearest road is nearly one-half mile away – an astonishing
statistic for Montgomery County. Car traffic can barely be heard there
during rush hours.
Wetland 1Y is a large shrub swamp that is the only known habitat for an
endangered animal on any ICC alignment. The bog turtle, which lives in this
wetland is an officially threatened species in the State of Maryland, and
under consideration for Federal Threatened status. (Its presence was
documented by ICC opponents during the public comment period, not by the
SHA's contractors.) The bedrock outcrop immediately east of North Branch
that would be blown up to accommodate the highway – with a thirty foot deep
cut – is the aquifer recharge for this wetland. It is not a coincidence
that the wettest part is the section immediately next to the bedrock hill,
which is where the bog turtles live.
Most parts of Montgomery County's park system are merely the floodplains
and associated steep slopes unsuitable for sprawl development. There is
very little upland forest habitat remaining in the Washington suburbs. Rock
Creek North Branch is one of the few Montgomery County parks that actually
has some dry ridge top forest, and should be protected from the ICC and all
other Master Planned intrusions.

ENDANGERED PLANT OF MARYLAND IN THE NORTHERN ALTERNATIVE MODIFIED
Smilax pseudochina / Halberd-leaved Greenbrier – S1 Endangered
(At least until DNR delists this endangered species!)

The Department of Natural Resources comments on the ICC reveal that they
secretly decided to downlist the three S1 endangered species found in the
ICC's alignments by the Wilson T. Ballard Company. According to State law,
the legislature is supposed to ratify this change in status, which was not
done. DNR officials are also supposed to consider what protection
populations of a species has, not just the numbers of populations, when
contemplating removal of "endangered" or "threatened" status.

Bobcats in Spencerville
Bobcats have apparently been sited in the vicinity of the Rocky Gorge
Reservoir near the Northern Alignment routes. They are a threatened species
in Maryland. This information was not included in the DEIS and should be
detailed in the Supplemental DEIS. Specifically, the SDEIS should describe
how the property around the reservoir is one of the largest protected
forests in the entire State of Maryland, larger than any of the "Wildlands"
owned by the DNR. The feline bobcats should be protected, not the minature
bulldozer that appropriates its name.

Maryland Law (COMAR 08.03.08 .07(B)(2)) states:

"Permits to take threatened species [of reptiles such as the Bog Turtle]
shall be issued only for:
"(a) Scientific research designed to enhance the recovery of the species or
population;
"(b) Other valid scientific research; or
"(c) Educational purposes designed to further public awareness regarding
the species."

Nowhere in the laws regarding Threatened and Endangered Species of the
State of Maryland does it permit the State Highway Administration to "take"
– meaning, to kill – species driven to the brink of extinction because of
habitat destruction. Destroying the wetland with sedimentation runoff
from ICC construction would constitute a "take" of this threatened species.
Instead, I recommend that the Maryland Natural Heritage Program increase
the protection given to uncommon species, especially those that might be
relatively abundant in rural areas but increasingly rare in suburban,
paved-over Montgomery and Prince Georges Counties. Perhaps M-NCPPC should
start a list of County Rare, Threatened and Endangered species and give them
formal legal protection on public and private land.

Big Tree Still Killed
All three ICC highways would also still kill the famous ICC BIG TREE, an 18
foot circumference tulip poplar about ½ mile west of Georgia Avenue, and its
surrounding buffer forest. This section is the nicest forest along the
entire ICC route, with the oldest trees, and its destruction could not
possibly be mitigated no matter how much money was wasted trying to do so.
The BIG TREE is likely at least 300 years old. This makes it extremely
significant in a county where much of the landscape seems to have been built
in the past few decades – few homes or natural features seem to have been
unscathed by the post-World War II rush to suburbanize the Maryland
Piedmont. The BIG TREE is bigger than any tulip poplar in Belt Woods
Natural Environment Area, and it is probably older than the County Champion
tuliptree, since that tree grows in the open (at Sandy Springs
meetinghouse), not in a dense forest that gets less light. The ICC
tuliptree also has much more furrowed bark than the Sandy Springs tree – a
sign of extreme age.
The BIG TREE and surrounding forest should be given protection under
Section 4(f) due to its historic value – it's one of the few relics of the
original Eastern Old Growth forest that once stretched unbroken from the
Atlantic to the Mississippi, from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico. In
addition, this area has been publicly owned for more than two decades
(possibly much more). While it was purchased as "highway reservation," not
parkland, it is intimately connected to North Branch Stream Valley Park and
serves as a major wildlife highway. There would be NO way to mitigate the
destruction of connecting corridors for wildlife.
All three ICC's would smother a significant Rock Creek tributary under tons
of fill dirt (Station 327, 360), since no bridges are contemplated over the
smaller streams that are the headwaters for the Chesapeake Bay.

One minor point: A small subdivision extension is shown proposed between
stations 336 and 346. This is likely merely an effort by the landowner to
inflate the value of the property to receive higher compensation from the
SHA. A similar strategy was used back in the 1980s near the US 29 / ICC
interchange, when a different developer claimed that land in the ICC path
was intended for townhouses. Paying an architect a small amount to design
that Potemkin neighborhood resulted in millions more in compensation from
SHA (ie. the taxpayers).

Outer Beltway Rollercoaster
I-495 between Georgia Avenue and Rockville Pike has nine curves and it one
of the most notoriously dangerous section of highway in the region. The
Hybrid ICC between Georgia Avenue and New Hampshire Avenue would have ten
curves, and be even more twisted, especially near Layhill Road.
It is worth noting that the result of building Norbeck Option 2 would be
the destruction of existing homes so that the highway could avoid a brand
new golf course.

No Norwood Option
East of Georgia Avenue, the hybrid would be either the Mid County Highway
or Northern Alternative route (this remains unclear). It would follow the
proposed 28-198 / Mid County / Northern Alternative between Layhill Road and
New Hampshire Avenue, which would pave the cleanest tributary of Northwest
Branch. While I'm completely opposed to building the 28-198 highway – which
would obliterate a stream cited as the cleanest in Northwest Branch
watershed by the County's Department of Environmental Protection and remove
a major forested connecting corridor between the Northwest Branch and
Patuxent River – the Norwood Option would have somewhat less direct impact
on wetlands.
Constructing Northern Alignment would build a large interchange with
Layhill Road in the 100 year floodplain and put huge fills at Norwood Road
in the 100 year floodplain. While the Norwood option would relocate much of
the road out of the floodplain, construction and road runoff would
significantly degrade these wetlands, fill them in with sediment and
increase erosion on the largest tributary of the Anacostia River – a river
already suffering from stupid land use decisions, particularly Longmead,
Llewelyn Fields and Hampshire Greed (three sprawling developments whose
builders are on the Board of Trade ICC Task Force).
If the ICC is cancelled but 28-198 is built, this would result in a widened
intersection in the 100 year floodplain at Layhill Road and a new
intersection at the 100 year floodplain at Norwood Road.
While both the standard NA route (identical to 28-198) and the Norwood
option (originally developed in the 28-198 study) would destroy the forested
connection between Northwest Branch and the Patuxent, the option would have
significantly less direct wetland impacts (although similar indirect
impacts). However, the option would result in an elevated ICC next to the
entrance to Tony Natelli's Llewelyn Fields development, and Mr. Natelli is
obviously more important than mucky wetlands.
The NA bridge over Norwood Road would be perhaps the longest bridge
anywhere on the ICC – over 400 feet long. Despite this, it still would not
span the entire 100 year floodplain nor avoid dumping fill into wetlands.
SHA clearly wants to minimize the bridge lengths, since "bridges freeze
before roads" and are much more expensive to build and maintain than roads
built on fill dirt. (A telling statistic: when Alignment G was
contemplated, SHA was asked by DNR to have a 1,000 foot bridge over the Good
Hope valley, and a half mile long bridge over the main stem of Paint Branch
to prevent the placement of fill dirt next to the stream. Instead, SHA's
Master Plan route would place fill dirt immediately next to, if not in, the
Paint Branch. SHA has NO desire for longer bridges to reduce wetland
impacts – no matter what Glen Harper, Aaron Handler and Stanley Doore state.)

New Hampshire – Intersection or Interchange?
Map MM198-12 shows an at grade intersection between the Mid County and MD
650, but Figure II-12 shows a grade separated interchange. This
contradiction should be addressed in the Supplemental Draft EIS.
Since the Hybrid proposal was unveiled, both SHA and Park and Planning
staff have stated their preference for using the Northern Alternative
interchange at MD 650. It is obvious that the ongoing widening of New
Hampshire Avenue has been a piece-meal effort for the ICC, since the extra
turn lanes for both the ICC MPA and the 28/198 highways were built. (A
comparison of the map of the MPA / New Hampshire interchange with the
extremely wide median of New Hampshire in the vicinity of the MPA makes this
very clear. It is obvious that SHA did not want people to understand this,
so they slowed down construction of this widening project to delay
completion until after the ICC's expected approval.)

Goodbye, Spencerville
The M-NCPPC transportation staff recommends continuing the highway along
existing Route 198 until just west of Burtonsville, and then shifting
northeast along the proposed Mid County highway route to US 29. This would
require massive widening of 198, which would obliterate downtown
Spencerville, Maryland. It would avoid the new subdivision under
construction along Peach Orchard Road (in the proposed Mid County Highway
alignment) but displace existing neighborhoods. The recommendation does not
say if the shift north from MD 198 to the Mid County route would be a curve
(which would take out several homes) or a traffic light controlled
intersection (which would slow down traffic). Apparently, new suburban
sprawl is more important than existing communities.
If the Burtonsville Option for Mid County is chosen due to the excessively
sharp six degree curve on the regular Mid County route, this could take out
even more homes. The widening of MD 198 is supposed to be on the south side
of the road, but that would require displacing a cemetary, something SHA
probably would not want to due because of public objections. Therefore, all
the homes on the north side of the road would be bulldozed.