Carroll purchases quarry for Westminster

The Baltimore Sun

The Carroll County commissioners signed a $1.25 million contract yesterday to purchase a New Windsor-area quarry that could yield about 300,000 gallons of water a day as a potential backup source for the water-depleted city of Westminster.

It will be the first water source purchased for Westminster since the city signed a consent order with the Maryland Department of the Environment in April, ending a six-month building moratorium because of the water deficit. That agreement mentions the quarry as a potential emergency source during times of drought.

"It holds probably 150 million gallons of water," said Thomas S. Devilbiss, a hydrogeologist who serves as the county's deputy planning director. "It's like a big storage tank except that it's in the ground instead of up. It's a reservoir."

The county agreed to purchase from a family estate a 60-acre wooded property - 9 acres of which is Hyde's Quarry, a 60-foot-deep lake that formed on the site of a former limestone pit.

County officials and their counterparts from New Windsor and Westminster have eyed Hyde's Quarry as a potential water source for 20 years, Devilbiss said. The quarry is a less expensive, more immediate option than the two $160 million reservoirs for which county and municipal officials hope to gain approval to build at Union Mills and Gillis Falls.

Westminster filed applications to draw water directly from Hyde's Quarry and from Big Pipe and Little Pipe creeks after signing the April agreement with the state Department of the Environment.

New state guidelines determined in September that Westminster could not meet its water demand during a drought and faced a deficit of up to 900,000 gallons a day, officials said.

The Department of the Environment has allocated an additional 60,000 gallons of water per day for limited interim development until new sources come online. If Westminster continues to meet the state's requirements, another 79,000 interim gallons per day will be allocated to the city for use in March.

But Westminster City Administrator Marge Wolf said it could take about two years to test the safety and viability of the water from Hyde's Quarry, which is about six miles outside of Westminster, off Jasontown Road.

The water will be tested for contaminants and also to ensure that the quarry replenishes itself and doesn't unduly tax aquifers already feeding the city system, she said.

"There's a lot of testing that has to go on before we even know if it could be used as an emergency source," Wolf said. "But this is good."

Even if the quarry water isn't pure, it could be used once treated, said J. Michael Evans, county public works director.

"Drinking water standards are not based on what goes into the system but what comes out of the tap," Evans said in the meeting at which the commissioners approved the purchase of the quarry.

Although the water pumped out of the quarry might not immediately replenish itself, the source could be used during a drought if given a longer period of time to recover, Devilbiss said.

The 60-acre parcel that contains Hyde's Quarry has scenic limestone cliffs and is surrounded by woods. Officials said the county could consider creating a park there around the reservoir.

A local farmer has crops planted on a couple of leased acres on the property. He will be allowed to harvest those crops and could continue to lease the land from the county in future growing seasons, officials said.

Overall, Evans said, the land should be an asset to the county and could also help meet Westminster's water needs.

"It's a beautiful site," he said. "It could be a fun place to take a hike."

The property that contains the quarry was involved in an estate dispute among the heirs of the John Hyde family. To settle the feud, attorney Michael G. Ritchey of Westminster became the court-appointed trustee in charge of selling the property.

Ritchey selected the county's bid for the property, on which a $25,000 deposit was made June 19, according to county officials. If no one objects when Ritchey files a report of the sale in court, he said, the county would settle on the property in less than two months.

John Elmer Smith, whose farm is adjacent to the quarry site, said he approves of the county's move to purchase the land.

"It's as good a water as you can get anywhere, as fresh as you can get," Smith said. "[The county] claims they need the water, and there's a lot reserved there."

laura.mccandlish@baltsun.com

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