Volume 15, Number 3 • May-June 1997

Preserving Maryland's Open Land

By Jack Greer

Protecting agriculture alone was not enough.

As the Chesapeake region nears the 21st Century, it faces a double bind. On the one hand, the Bay continues to suffer from nutrient overload - especially nitrogen - from fertilizers and animal (including human) waste. On the other, the Bay's watershed is experiencing rapid growth in many areas, leading to a proliferation of parking lots and other impervious surfaces, and to the disappearance of open lands and natural habitat.

Farm fields lie squarely in the middle of the conundrum. They send large amounts of nitrogen and phosphorus into the Bay and its tributaries every year, contributing to the estuary's number one problem: overenrichment. But farms also represent a major resource in terms of natural open space and habitat, and farmland shapes the very landscape many Marylanders are striving to save.

The question is how to protect farms on the one hand, and to reduce their impact on the Bay on the other.

"We need Smart Farming," says Russ Brinsfield, director of the University System of Maryland's Wye Research and Education Center, and himself a farmer, "just as we have Smart Growth."

Given that a number of efforts are underway to encourage Best Management Practices and especially nutrient management, farming may be "smarter," but one wonders whether farm land will survive at all.

The key, say Brinsfield and others, will be a better approach to using the land we have left.

"If we don't think about how we use the land, all the gains we've made will be lost," says Brinsfield, who points to the growing impacts not of farming but of atmospheric deposition from car exhaust and nutrients from leaking septic systems. These growing nonpoint problems result directly from expanding population and development in the region.

Programs for Natural Lands

Farmers have always been the largest land owners in the Chesapeake watershed, and there have long been programs to help preserve farming - such as the Agriculture Land Protection Program - and programs to help farmers adopt progressive methods for tilling their land. But a gathering realization in the state has put an additional value on farm land - as open space, as habitat for wildlife, as part of the region's cultural, economic and natural legacy.

"Farm land preservation has been based directly on agriculture," says Russ Brinsfield. While good, this has resulted in a "scatter-shot" approach, he says. This year the Maryland legislature moved to improve on that approach, by passing a program entitled "Rural Legacy."

Farms include much more than crop lands, Brinsfield says. They include timber, wetlands, and a large amount of edge areas, where woods meet open ground. The beauty of the Rural Legacy program, says Brinsfield, is that it both insures the preservation of agriculture and protects large contiguous areas as habitat.

The new Rural Legacy Program is designed to protect farms against development, and to protect the Chesapeake watershed against the impacts of losing the natural benefits of open lands.

According to George Maurer of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, "What we like about [Rural Legacy] is its approach to multiple resources." In other words, rural legacy aims at conserving more than farm fields. Built into the legislation is the role of open lands as habitat for wildlife, as buffers for streams - lands left largely in a natural state.

It was, according to Maurer and others, the inclusion of natural habitat that made the Rural Legacy Program politically powerful. Brinsfield agrees. "Protecting agriculture alone was not enough, " he says.

The legislation was not without its detractors.

Funding the preservation of open lands involved a debate over Program Open Space, which derives its funds from a 5% transfer tax. The tax is collected from real estate sales, and is intended to fund parks and other forms of open space throughout the state. According to Bill Castelli, Director of Governmental Affairs for the Maryland Association of Realtors, "The Maryland Association of Realtors opposed the legislation as it was written." This, according to Castelli, was largely because the program depended on funds from the 5% transfer tax.

The real estate industry has never been happy with the transfer tax, says Castelli, since it adds an additional burden to the sale of property. Further, he says, the use of the tax has expanded over the years. "The Heritage Program and Ag Land Preservation Program already get funds from the transfer tax," says Castelli. Over time he worries that tying support of a number of programs to the transfer tax could eventually mean greater pressure to raise that tax.

Aside from the tax issue, Castelli finds much of the Rural Lands and Smart Growth approach "logical." "We were concerned about how designation [of a Rural Legacy Area] would affect individual farmers," says Castelli, who worried that farmers would be "coerced" into making a decision. As it stands, though, he says that using the carrot of incentives is much better than the stick of rigid zoning. "This is much better than drawing a line in the sand and saying that everything past this line cannot change."

In one sense, he says, the Rural Legacy Program represents a healthy competition between state preservation programs on the one hand and free-market developers on the other - with the individual farmer making a choice based on financial options and personal values.

What effect this will have on Maryland's real estate market only time will tell, says Castelli. "We'll find out what kind of impact this will have on property values further down the line," he says.

Achieving "Smart Growth"

To Rob Etgen's way of thinking, "This is all good news."

Etgen is the director of the Eastern Shore Land Conservancy, an organization dedicated to the preservation of natural lands. "The Rural Legacy Program puts Maryland back at the forefront of sophistication," says Etgen. "We've been using tools developed years ago - tools other states have copied - now we have taken a significant leap forward with the Rural Legacy Program."

According to Etgen, "The Rural Legacy Program says, 'Let's get over the hump so we'll have these lands for the next century.' "

Etgen agrees with Maurer that what sets the Rural Legacy Program apart is the "partnering" between farmland protection and natural resource protection, in a growth management context. "Usually these have been completely separate programs," says Etgen. "There was little synergy and leveraging before - together they will be a huge asset."

The Eastern Shore Land Conservancy is now working with about five counties on the Eastern Shore in support of a regional plan. Bringing separate counties together behind a common goal will prove a challenge, he admits, but he is delighted that "we have raised the stakes to a statewide level."

"Land use issues are all knitted together," he says. "Both [farm preservation and natural resource] programs will learn a great deal."

According to Russ Brinsfield, in terms of real costs to the state the Rural Legacy and Smart Growth initiatives are on the right track. "Until the true costs are paid for things like transportation and air pollution, sprawl will continue," he says. "The Governor's Smart Growth package is an excellent move," he adds. "It could prove as important as Governor Hughes' original Bay legislation."

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