This past Wednesday, ESLC testified in support of SB 294- Family Farm Preservation Act; a bill designed to help soften the financial burden for family farms and ensure the next generation inherits agricultural property without excessive costs. This bill would limit the estate (inheritance) tax on agricultural land and support Maryland family farms during a very vulnerable time.

This week ESLC will testify in support of SB 236 – Sustainable Growth and Agricultural Preservation Act of 2012, which could effectively combat one of the most damaging forces facing the Eastern Shore’s landscape and economy: rural sprawl. This bill establishes four tiers of development areas that increasingly limit the type of development that can occur with a goal of reducing the number of acres of land converted to development and the number of polluting septic systems.

ESLC wants you to join the process.   Be an advocate for change and join ESLC in speaking up for a vibrant Eastern Shore. For more information, please contact ESLC Policy Manager Josh Hastings at 410-827-9756 Ext.169 or jhastings@eslc.org.

The Howard Wood Scholarship was established by the family of the Mr. Wood to honor his lifelong commitment to youth, conservation and the Eastern Shore’s rich rural heritage.

ESLC is currently accepting applications for the 2012 scholarship. The scholarship application is open to anyone looking to pursue a career in agriculture, land use planning alternative energy planning or other conservation related field. The competition is open to those who are residents of the six counties ESLC serves – Caroline, Cecil, Dorchester, Kent, Queen Anne’s and Talbot. Applications are available via ESLC’s website.  To apply, applicants should fill out an application, provide a high school or college transcript and submit a 500-word original essay describing their response to the following question:

Consider the Eastern Shore in the next 25 years – what is your vision for the Shore? What will you do to ensure the Eastern Shore remains the rural gem and special place that it is for the future?  Please include your academic plans, career aspirations and future goals when responding to this question.

Scholarship applications are due by March 31, 2012. Applications will be judged by a panel and one scholarship recipient will be selected and announced in May.

Download the application.

About Howard Wood

Howard Wood spent summers at his grandmother’s farm crabbing, sailing and swimming – if the jellyfish weren’t too thick. He helped with chores and learned to drive her Model T pick-up. After college and law school, Howard decided to live year round at Indiantown – the farm next door to his grandmother’s – and opened his law office in Centreville. He soon became aware that the increasing urbanization of the Shore threatened the livelihood of many of his clients – farmers and watermen – as well as the natural and fertile beauty of the area he loved so much.

Howard spent many volunteer hours working with the Maryland Environmental Trust and was a founding board member of ESLC. He helped many neighbors, clients and friends place conservation easements on their land. The Wood family established this scholarship in Howard’s memory and feels that helping a student interested in a career in conservation continue or start his or her education would honor Howard’s legacy.

We are bombarded daily with news of economic volatility, hostile politics, lawsuits, a polluted Chesapeake Bay, our warming climate, and this year even hurricanes and an earthquake. Thankfully, the holiday season is here to remind us of the abundance in our lives of things that really matter.

Here on the Eastern Shore, development is down, but so is sprawl. It was a wild weather year for farming, but good prices and good soybeans may save the day. Although oysters are down due to high rainfall, the rockfish young-of-the-year (YOY) survey indicated the highest reproduction ever. The Frederick Douglass statue was completed this year and stands proudly on the Talbot County Court House green. Chesapeake College enrollment is up, school ratings are up, we have new medical facilities underway, and wind and solar energy projects are springing up everywhere.

Perhaps most importantly, our Eastern Shore communities have pulled together strongly in the most difficult times with new homeless shelters, multiple food pantry drives, and even several new community park projects in our towns. I am confident that the Eastern Shore will emerge from this current recession stronger and more resilient than when we entered it.

A 439.269-acre donated easement in Talbot County on Skipton Creek near the village of Longwoods. The easement covers about 245 acres of active farmland and waterfowl impoundments and about 185 acres of woods. The property is home to a large population of the endangered Delmarva Fox Squirrel that will be protected by the easement with a forest management plan.

The easement also permanently retires all of the development rights on 122 acres of the property zoned Village Center for the village of Longwoods, as well as all but two development rights on the remainder of the property. The easement also protects critical habitat for Forest Interior Dwelling bird species (FIDS) and migrating songbirds, as well as the Few-flowered Tick-trefoil, considered endangered in the state of Maryland, and the Log Fern, considered threatened in the state of Maryland.

The property scored an “excellent” rating on the Maryland Green Infrastructure ranking system. The easement was donated to ESLC and Maryland Environmental Trust by Yorktown Farm, LLC.

Miles Point

The conservation of the 72.003-acre property in the town of St. Michaels was formalized Wednesday by the Board of Public Works. Thanks to the generosity of a conservation buyer, the conservation of this property ended a 12-year series of legal proceedings and lawsuits among developers who wanted to build on the property, the Town of St. Michaels, and those opposed to development. The easement was donated to ESLC and Maryland Environmental Trust by the donor-landowner.

Gray

W. Calvin Gray and Constance Gray donated to ESLC and Maryland Environmental Trust a conservation easement on 318.038 acres in Queen Anne’s County. The property is a mix of agriculture and woodland. The scenic road frontage of the property connects 1,000 feet of protected scenic road frontage to another 4,000 feet of protected scenic road frontage.

The property has 789 linear feet of stream channels, which are protected by a 100-foot buffer strip.  The existing forested buffers maintain water quality along the unnamed tributary of Alder Branch, a tributary of the Corsica River. The property is in the county’s Agricultural Priority Preservation Area, meaning the Property was designated as a priority for agricultural preservation by Queen Anne’s County.

Kinney

Brooke and Lynne Kinney donated to Eastern Shore Land Conservancy an easement on their 29-acre property on the Wye River in Queen Anne’s County.

The property has more than 3,000 feet of shoreline along the Wye, and the conservation of this property will contribute to water quality of the Wye River. The entire property is in the Critical Area and is zoned (CS) Countryside, which means the property was designated to preserve and protect the rural and agricultural areas of Queen Anne’s County.

Within one mile of the property are 510.156 acres of protected land. The property is in close proximity to ESLC, and county easements. It consists of nine acres of tilled Agricultural land, eight acres of marshland and seven acres of wooded yard.  The property is surrounded on three sides by the Wye River, a tributary of the Chesapeake Bay.  The dominant tree species present in the forested yard area include red maple, Osage orange, sassafras, red oak, white oak, and elm. Lynne is extremely conservation minded and continuously plants native species throughout the property. She is nurturing a giant oak which was recently struck by lightning and works with Chesapeake Wildlife Heritage on multiple property projects.

Faulkner Branch

The state Board of Public Works in November approved a CREP Buffer easement a 61.2-acre property owned by Ronald and Linda Christopher. Included in the easement are 30.6 acres of grass buffer and 30.6 acres of mature forest, both of which help to protect the water quality of Faulkner Branch in southern Caroline County. Faulkner Branch is a tributary of the Nanticoke River and the Chesapeake Bay.

The easement is co-held by ESLC and Maryland Department of Natural Resources, which also provided funding for the easement.

The Task Force is finalizing its meetings and voted today on recommendations that could lead to significant changes in residential subdivision development, as well as changes that would reduce the amount of nutrients that flow into the Chesapeake Bay. The Task Force was developed after HB 1107 and SB 846 (Sustainable Growth and Agricultural Preservation Act of 2011) legislation stalled earlier this year during the Maryland General Assembly’s regular legislative session.

With the Task Force’s recommendations, counties can define minor subdivisions as having as many as eight lots instead of the five lot cap proposed last year.  This means farmers can develop as many as eight lots on their land without having to build a community sewage treatment facility.   Above eight lots a property must either have access to a sewage treatment plant or build a community treatment facility. Additionally, all new individual septic systems must have best available technology for removing nutrients from the effluent.

“This is a significant compromise and we are greatly supportive and impressed,” said Rob Etgen, ESLC’s Executive Director and member of the Task Force. “A diverse group of individuals with many competing ideas and interests came together to help find a compromise; one that will help curb cornfield developments, lower the State’s nitrogen load to the Chesapeake Bay, and still provide latitude to local decision makers.”

The Task Force recommendations also include an increase of the state’s Bay Restoration Fund (“flush fee”), to $60 per year, compared to the current amount of $30 per year for property owners.  The fund pays for sewage treatment plant and septic system upgrades as well as cover crops that keep pollutants from running off farms into waterways.

“We have made immense progress”, said Etgen.  “This is a great plan that we have provided to the General Assembly and with these recommendations, we can limit unsustainable, costly sprawl as well as reduce the amount of pollution that goes into the bay. Those of us who have worked on this, as well as the state as a whole, should be proud of the strong recommendations put forward.”

Eastern Shore Land Conservancy is a private, nonprofit land conservation organization committed to preserving and sustaining the vibrant communities of the Eastern Shore and the lands and waters that connect them.  For more information please visit www.eslc.org.

Thanks to our talented volunteers, Lynn Dolinger, Nancy Neely, Jane Scott and Bob Stanley, many more people on the Eastern Shore have a better understanding of what ESLC does to preserve and sustain our vibrant communities and the land and waters that connect them.

New additions to our information table were well received.  A challenge to match leaves with their name and a game to guess the correct weight of two giant pumpkins made for interesting conversation and fun calculations.  The pumpkin weights were 96 pounds and 64 pounds with guesses ranging from 43 to 650 pounds.  The great pumpkin was quite large but not as great as some imagined!

Look for ESLC staff and volunteers Nov. 11 to 13 at Waterfowl Festival in the Waterfowl Chesapeake Pavilion, a new exhibit highlighting all things green in 2011. We’re looking forward to seeing you there.

Morning