Seven Turf Valley residents fear chemical treatments at a golf course may harm future residents if the land is developed.
Marc Norman, a Turf Valley resident, spearheaded an appeal filed Tuesday, stating that more than 40 years of pesticides and herbicide treatments could endanger residents of Turf Valley, which is bordered by the Little Patuxent River and Routes 40 and 70.
He and the other residents are combating a Maryland Department of the Environment May 16 decision to allow a developer to build houses on a golf course by granting a permit.
“The key issue is MDE?s refusal to analyze the potential environmental and public health risk associated with more than 45 years of golf course chemical application,” said Norman, co-chairman of Responsible Growth in Our Neighborhood, or REGION, a coalition of neighbors opposed to the project.
But Horacio Tablada, director of waste management for the department said, “we saw nothing in the data that was a risk.”
Developer Louis Mangione, of Mangione Family Enterprises, plans to build houses and businesses on an unused golf course in the Turf Valley resort, a mixed-use development in Ellicott City.
According to Mangione?s comprehensive sketch plan, structures may be built over a current chemical storage facility.
“Will we build where the pesticide storage facility is located?” Mangione said. “Yes, something will go there, whether it is a road or a house or a park.”
An environmental study by Advantage Environmental Consultants LLC in Jessup, commissioned by Mangione, did not test the area near the storage facility.
Jeff Stein, principal of Advantage Environmental Consultants, refused to comment on the study.
Low levels of mercury, a breakdown of the pesticide DDT, called DDE, and a pesticide called chlordane were found in the soil. Levels of arsenic were found above the recommended limit for residential areas, but consistent with amounts found throughout Maryland, according to the study.
What?s next?
For the appeal to qualify, the seven residents who are members of the Responsible Growth in Our Neighborhood, or REGION, a coalition of neighbors opposed to the project must prove they are personally harmed by the decision. The Maryland Department of the Environment?s Office of Administrative Hearings is expected to make a decision on the appeal in the upcoming months.
