IT SHOULD be no surprise that a Baltimore County zoning hearing officer approved Har Sinai's plans to build a 62,000-square-foot synagogue and day care center. The arguments offered against Har Sinai's proposal during seven days of hearings last month were not convincing.

County hearing officer Lawrence C. Schmidt was not swayed by arguments that the synagogue, proposed by America's oldest continuous Reform Jewish congregation, would disrupt the neighborhood by drawing heavy traffic to its narrow roads. Neither was he moved by fears that the synagogue's wells would dry up neighboring wells or that its septic system would pollute the area's ground water.

Opponents also pressed the peculiar point that building on the 17-acre site, an unregulated dump for nearly four decades, would cause severe environmental dam- age to adjacent properties. Since Har Sinai promised to clean up the site, the objection was unusual. Opponents never explained how leaving the buried debris, leaching oil and chemicals, would enhance the environment and protect ground water.

In fact, Mr. Schmidt questioned the motives of opponents in raising the environmental condition of the site, because they hadn't leveled concerns about it until Har Sinai revealed its intention to build. Cynical use of environmental protection for other ends has been seen before, as when a failing department store outside Annapolis years ago sought to block the nearby Annapolis Mall from expanding on the premise it would disturb wetlands. Everyone knew the complainant feared Nordstrom, not the loss of habitat.

Har Sinai's opponents say they will appeal the decision. Their attorney decried the trend of religious institutions moving farther from the city.

The argument was ironic coming from a representative of residents who long ago made the move outward themselves -- leading the institutions, interested in their own growth and preservation, to want to follow.

Pub Date: 3/24/99