Forest Conservation Act hasn’t exactly been living up to its title

Over the past decade, Southern Maryland has lost an average of nearly 470 acres of forest a year to development. Two-thirds of the state’s total forest loss to development is happening in Southern Maryland, if you add Prince George’s County. That’s because the region has lots of forests, and lots of development pressure.

While local officials are thankful for the tax revenue and business that growth brings, we rarely get an accounting of the costs to taxpayers. What is the cost of losing forests?

Last year the Maryland Department of Natural Resources conducted a study that found the forests and wetlands of Charles County provide $577 million worth of services each year. The biggest service is filtering water pollution. The forests of Southern Maryland are like giant sponges, sopping up runoff from storms.

As a county such as St. Mary’s trades forests for development, it is hit with a triple whammy. First, it loses the forests that used to filter runoff for free. Second, the development that replaces the forests adds more pollution: sewage, lawn treatment products and pet waste, to name a few. Third, county residents must either pay increased taxes to build manmade pollution filtering devices, or face increasingly polluted creeks and rivers.

DNR notes on its “Forestr y Facts” webpage that tree loss in the Baltimore-Washington region since 1973 has resulted in a 19 percent increase in polluted runoff at a cost of over $1 billion.

Charles County alone estimates it will spend $73 million in a five-year period to reduce polluted runoff from just a fraction of existing development. Charles is required by federal and state law to do this work because of its population. In the ver y near future, St. Mar y’s growing population will cause it to be held to similar standards for reducing polluted runoff.

Let that sink in. Development is clearing hundreds of acres a year that provide millions of dollars in free filtering services annually. County taxpayers are left with a bill of millions of dollars.

All this is upsetting enough. But consider Maryland has a law that is supposed to minimize forest loss from development. It was enacted 27 years ago. It is called the Forest Conservation Act. It isn’t living up to its title.

A study last year by the University of Maryland College of Agriculture and Natural Resources concluded the FCA is badly flawed. While the law protects forests that have lesser ecological value, it actually enables development to cut down our best forests, those that provide us the most services, and save us the most money. Major development projects typically bulldoze half the woods on their properties, or more, often without replanting any trees. Because it is flawed, the FCA allows this type of clear-cutting.

A bill in the Mar yland General Assembly this year addresses the flaws in the FCA. The legislation — Senate Bill 610 — clarifies muddy language and concepts in the original law. The bill isn’t anti-development. It focuses on saving the state’s best forests, those that provide us the most benefits. It requires builders to better justify cutting them down, and helps citizens understand what attempts were made to minimize clearing. The bill insists developers replant an acre of new forest for any acre of “priority” forest destroyed.

We hope our state legislators support the bill. It’s not enough to protect the shortterm profits of growth. We also must safeguard taxpayers. Fiscal conservatives as well as environmentalists should champion this bill.