Clashes between past and present aren't unusual in Harford County, and that battle was joined once again Tuesday night during a two-hour County Council public hearing on a proposal to sell 68.6 acres of undeveloped, county-owned property to Bel Air's water company.
Maryland American Water, an investor-owned utility which serves Bel Air and some surrounding areas to the north and west of the town, will use part of the site, known for nearly 300 years as Mt. Soma, for a water storage reservoir that town and county officials say is needed to support future residential and commercial development.
Nearly two dozen people spoke at the hearing, most of them either opposing the sale outright or urging extreme caution, saying the county should only sell enough land to build the reservoir, estimated at between 20 and 25 acres, and no more.
The planned reservoir, technically an "upland impoundment," is the most expedient and cost effective solution to his company's need for an adequate water supply with sufficient backup capability, Maryland American President William Walsh said.
Water would be gradually taken from Winters Run, which runs along the north side of the Mt. Soma property, and stored in the reservoir to be drawn down when needed. The company's treatment plant is just across the stream from the proposed reservoir site.
Lack of a reliable water supply has stymied recent residential and commercial growth in the area served by Maryland American, county and town officials said.
Craig Ward, a businessman, engineer and member of the town's economic development board, said the water supply "has been an issue for quite some time" and warned it would be "devastating to the Town of Bel Air and private property owners and their investment" if a permanent solution isn't implemented. The proposed reservoir would hold 124 million gallons, about a 100-day supply.
Many speakers, however, were skeptical about giving up one of the few remaining open spaces in the corridor along Route 1 between the Baltimore County line and Bel Air.
Several, sporting "Save Mt. Soma" stickers on their clothing, warned that selling off the property, which the county acquired for future parkland 19 years ago, would be "short-sighted."
If the county tried to buy a similar site in the future, it would cost far more than the $8,000 an acre the water company will be paying for Mt. Soma, they said.
"The grease is on the tracks, the train is getting moving," Mike Pons, one of the owners of Country Life Farm, a thoroughbred horse farm across Route 1 from Mt. Soma, said.
He said his family would be getting a "double whipsaw" from having to look at the proposed 20-plus acre manmade lake, which will be encased in an earthen berm 58 feet high, and from being just downstream from it, if there was breach in the impoundment.
Because of security concerns, the public won't have access to the reservoir, and the company plans a perimeter security fence and 24-hour monitoring. The height of the berm would exceed that of most of the buildings in Bel Air and elsewhere in Harford County.
With opposition to an outright sale of the property crystallizing in recent weeks, county administration officials said there would be restrictions in the deed of sale to prevent any acreage not used by the water company from being developed for residential or commercial uses. Some of the former Mt. Soma land the county was unable to purchase previously, about 18 acres on the south end of the tract, is being developed for several hundred apartments, with a few commercial sites also permitted by its B3 zoning.
The county's property is zoned agricultural, but several speakers noted there are up to six residential development rights which they said should be extinguished before the property changes hands.
The council approved amendments Tuesday to a resolution that declares the property surplus and authorizes its sale. The amendments, which passed, 7-0, state that the water company cannot subdivide the property for non-utility uses, except to sell any unused portion back to the county at the same per acre price of $7,999.
The council did not, however, act on the resolution. Council President Richard Slutzky said a final vote is likely at the next council session May 12, but some members said after the hearing there may be additional amendments offered.
"We have no issues with subdividing the property and selling it back to the county at the price we paid for it," Walsh said.
Under questioning from council members, Walsh and an associate said the company has a conceptual plan for the project, not a final design, so it only has an approximate idea how much land it will need for the impoundment and a security buffer.
"I think it would be more prudent to wait until we know what those final specs are going to look like because then going the next step to subdivision, if the property is going to be subdivided, I would rather see it subdivided first," Councilman Mike Perrone Jr. said. "Once Maryland American knows exactly what they need, we subdivide, sell them what they need – at auction actually, for the benefit of all Harford County taxpayers; that's the way I think it should be handled."
"But it seems like we're kind of going out of order if we give them the property and then the specs get figured out and then they give us back what we could have held onto in the first place," he said.
County Public Works Director Tim Whittie countered that time is of the essence.
The county, he noted, has been selling water to Maryland American and the company is entering into a consent decree with the Maryland Department of the Environment that they will have a permanent solution to the Bel Air water supply issue within four years.
"We didn't want to get into the position of throwing obstacles," he said. "The bottom line is there's a huge process involved...and we are trying to avoid that."
Maryland American has about 5,000 residential and business customers, but the number of people using its water daily is in the tens of thousands, company and county officials said.
Councilman Jim McMahan, who represents the greater Bel Air area, including the town, said he wants to move the process along and defended the Mr. Soma selling price of $459,000.
"Why inflate the price?" he asked, noting the additional cost will just be passed on to Maryland American's customers.
Whittie agreed the county shouldn't be trying to maximize profits "on the backs of its citizens."
"For all intents and purposes, this property will stay much the same as it is today, except it will have a pond on it," McMahan said.
The only current backup is for Maryland-American to buy water from Harford County's supply. The two water systems are interconnected, but the county has supply issues of its own, Slutzky said, particularly with regard to the 30 million gallons it receives daily from Baltimore City controlled sources.
"I don't want to have to buy water from Baltimore City in the next drought," McMahan said.
"As the administrator for the Town of Bel Air it is my responsibility to our residents, visitors and businesses to work for a clean, sustainable and affordable water supply," Town Administrator Jesse Bane said. "The history of Bel Air demonstrates we do not have a water supply that can sustain us in a severe and prolonged drought."
Bane also warned Winters Run is susceptible to being contaminated by a fuel spill along the many highways serving Bel Air that are upstream from the intake to the Maryland American treatment plant.
More than a year ago, the water company and the town agreed to what Whittie called an "informal moratorium," shutting down all new residential and commercial construction in Maryland American's service area because of concerns by the Maryland Department of the Environment about the reliability of the water supply.
The moratorium was lifted last fall after the water company, the town and county announced they had agreed in principle to make part of the Mt. Soma property available for the storage reservoir.
Although that deal was made during the waning weeks of his predecessor's term, Harford County Executive Barry Glassman endorsed the plan and the decision to sell Mt. Soma, rather than lease the property, has moved forward on his initiative.
The property was acquired by the county for $432,000 in 1996. Despite the intention to use it for parkland, those plans haven't advanced past a conceptual phase, and most of the site is rented out for farming. A barn on the property is one of the county's oldest structures, but the manor house was set on fire by vandals some years ago and could not be saved.
The county plans to restore the barn, a springhouse and a corn crib and preserve the footprint of the former house, Director of Administration Billy Boniface said, noting money has already been placed in the next budget for the work.
Among opponents to the sale who spoke at Tuesday's hearings were descendants of William Amos, who settled the property in 1715. He reversed the letters in his surname to come up with Mt. Soma.
His son, also named William, fought in the border wars of 1730s between Maryland and Pennsylvania colonists, which was ultimately settled by the surveying of the Mason-Dixon Line, Richard Sherrill, president of the Historical Society of Harford County, said. That was before Maryland was a state and before Harford County was formed, he noted.
The second William Amos later became a Quaker and was a founder of the Friends meeting in what became Fallston, where he is buried in the graveyard of the Little Falls meetinghouse.
Today, there are some 10,000 Amos descendants living in every state, family members said, including members of other prominent Harford families with names such as Harlan, Watson, Archer and McComas.
"I'm strongly against this," said Hannah Amoss, of White Hall, a 10th generation descendant of William Amos. She called the site "a perfect spot for a park."
"It should remain parkland to recognize the significance William Amos and his accomplishments for this county and those who followed," Sherrill said.