Land needed to lessen ICC’s impact, environmentalists say

Judge ruled in May that Winchester Homes has right to repurchase unused acres originally meant for highway

‘‘We just can’t sweep this under the rug,” he said. ‘‘It’s totally unacceptable to go forward with the ICC without this mitigation.”

Dunmire said the ICC will destroy the high-quality springs that feed the watershed’s unique wild trout population and the sub-watershed is needed to replace that.

The land, referred to as the Peach Orchard⁄Allnut Property, was acquired by the state in 1997 from the previous owner, Winchester Homes of Bethesda, for a possible route for the impending Intercounty Connector. It was purchased for $10.6 million in 1998, according to Fran Counihan, the media relations manager for the ICC.

However, the 18-mile toll road was realigned and will no longer pass through that area, so the land was given to the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission to offset the highway’s environmental impact. The state told Winchester Homes it could not buy back the land.

But a Montgomery County Circuit Court ruled in May the original owner can re-purchase the land because it is no longer in the path of the ICC.

The state is appealing the decision.

Stephen Nardella, the senior vice president of acquisitions at Winchester Homes, said because the case is still in litigation, he could not comment on whether Winchester Homes would re-purchase the land or what the company would do with the land if it did. Nardella said the land was approved in the 1990s for 130 residential lots. He said it was already partially developed for a housing subdivision when the state acquired it. Ninety of the 130 lots were cleared and graded and some sediment control and stormwater facilities were put into place, he said.

The property is located at Peach Orchard and Spencerville roads between Burtonsville and Spencerville. The new realignment will put the ICC two miles south of the property, still close enough to require mitigation, Dunmire said.

‘‘If the court decides that state highway has to offer this up for sale to Winchester Homes, then we need some form of mitigation,” he said.

Currently, the state has allocated land to be protected in the northwestern part of the county, which would not offset the damage done to the watershed, Dunmire said.

James Connolly, the acting president for the Anacostia Watershed Society, which works with all of the watersheds in the region, said buying land away from the watershed does not help.

‘‘There’s no net mitigation gain,” he said. ‘‘They’re just sort of cheaping out by buying up land to prevent future damage.”

He said the entire Anacostia Watershed, which includes northern Prince George’s County and eastern Washington, D.C., is already in trouble. The Paint Branch Watershed feeds into the Anacostia River.

‘‘We have paved over so much of our watershed with roads and rooftops and parking lots,” he said. ‘‘Putting a highway through the headwater of its streams is going to cause further damage and stress.”

The state should consider what it did for the Sligo Creek Watershed in the 1930s when there was a demand for development, said Bruce Sidwell, the president of the environmental group Friends of Sligo Creek.

Development was prohibited along the borders of the creek, he said, preserving the parkland along the floodplains of the creek.

‘‘It was green right from the beginning,” he said.

The Paint Branch Watershed covers a large area of eastern Montgomery County. The headwaters are near Route 198, the west side is on New Hampshire Avenue, the east side is Route 29 and the southern end stretches to Fairland Road.