Councilmember Hans Riemer Tours the Reserve

At Large Council Member Hans Riemer and his son Henry, age 3, came to the Reserve on April 9th for a grand tour of area farms, historic resources and a view to some of the threats to the continued viability of farming here in Montgomery County. Hey, plus Henry got to hold a chicken and pat a piggy!  Dolores Milmoe of Audubon Naturalist Society and MCA’s executive director Caroline Taylor began the tour at Pooles’ Store in Seneca and led the Reimer boys around the countryside culminating with a visit to the ford on West Old Baltimore Road. There in the chilly, clear waters of Ten Mile Creek,  volunteer stream monitors from Audubon gave evidence to the need for protection of that watershed:  an abundance of micro and macro invertebrates signaling a still high quality stream that faces threat from Clarksburg’s  planned Stage 4 development. MCA Board member, Gwen Reese and Sean and Greg (also on MCA Board) from Rockland’s Farm joined the tour to give both historic and producer prospective.  The day was gray…the tour golden!

Protecting Sugarloaf Mountain Views from Cell Towers

MCA, along with other local organizations and individuals, has sent  a letter to Montgomery County Tower Chair Marjorie Williams to express ongoing concerns about the proposed T-Mobile Cell tower on Mt. Ephraim Rd, a tower that, as planned, would be visible from Sugarloaf Mountain.

The tower would be disguised as a newly built, oversized silo on a non-working farm (pictured above). The organizations and individuals signing on to the letter ask that the tower instead be sited across the road from its current location on the existing silo of one of the last remaining Dairy Farms in the County. Another option is installing DAS, where small cell towers are attached to existing power poles, as was done along River Road, adding cell coverage with no effect on view sheds.

We continue to work with T-Mobile and the County to find better cell tower solutions that protect historic viewsheds, particularly one as grand as from the top of Sugarloaf Mountain.