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A new community watchdog group plans to appeal directly to Maryland State Senate President Thomas V. Miller in its bid to keep a waste transfer station out of Upper Marlboro, as part of its efforts to to become a strong political advocate.

The two-week-old Citizens for a Healthy Upper Marlboro is composed of a coalition of realtors, developers, environmental activists and concerned residents. CHUM plans to tell Miller (D-Dist. 27) of Chesapeake Beach that the proposed site for the transfer station is environmentally significant and needs to be protected by state legislation, said CHUM consultant Richard Klein, president of Community and Environmental Defense Services, an Owings Mills consulting firm that helps residents fight development projects.

The project was approved by the County Council on Sept. 16.

"That's certainly the easiest and quickest way to get the county to take another look," he said.

Klein made his recommendations in a report he gave the group at an Oct. 1 meeting.

County planners say the transfer station, where all of the county's solid waste would be collected before being transported to large commercial landfills, has to be finished by 2011, when the landfill on Brown Station Road is expected to reach capacity.

"You have to put the trash somewhere," said Maria Martin, a planner for the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission, who led the effort to choose the site. "[Upper Marlboro] met the criteria the best of any of the sites in this county."

That criteria included environmental considerations, concerns of local residents and broader development trends in the area, Martin said.

But CHUM's members say the transfer station will clog streets near Upper Marlboro with trucks transporting waste, pollute the nearby Patuxent River, give off unpleasant odors and slow development and home sales in the area.

Klein said Miller could push a provision similar to that of Sen. Leo Green (D-Dist. 23) of Bowie, who passed a provision in 2001 to keep a proposed transfer station out of the town by forbidding waste stations to be located within three miles of an institute of higher education, in that case Bowie State University.

Klein calls it a "redheaded Eskimo" law, or a law that seems broad but is actually tailored to a small constituency.

CHUM has appointed a media relations specialist, Jacquie Hayes, and it invited Mike Sanders, president of the public relations firm Political Media Inc., to its October 1 meeting. Troy Dixon, CHUM's co-treasurer, said the group has also set conference calls so concerned residents can speak with group leaders by telephone.

Most CHUM members cite truck traffic, odors and pollution as the biggest reasons for their opposition to the station. But many group members are involved in development or real estate and say they worry the transfer station will hurt their businesses and slow development in the area.

CHUM member and realtor Anthony Montgomery said if the transfer station was in Upper Marlboro, it would make his job more difficult.

"It would make it much harder," he said. "It would be detrimental to the value of homes in this area."

Upper Marlboro resident Henry Turner, the CEO of development company Turner and Associates, opposes the station because of its proximity to his home and because he said it will hurt his business.

"Economic development we would want to do [in the future] is going to be affected by this site," he said.

Turner said the southern part of the county has always had trouble attracting developers, homeowners and commercial interests, largely because political leaders have not invested in infrastructure far south of the Beltway.

But he said there is cause for hope. The southern part of the county has acres of undeveloped land, and the county has plans to redevelop Route 301 so it does not have traffic lights, which will encourage commuters to the northern part of the county to live in Upper Marlboro. The county's Subregion VI plan is also expected to draw residents and commercial interests into the area.

"People are just now beginning to see the advantages of developing down here," Turner said. "With all that is going on, you would wonder why you would want to put a trash site just a mile away."

Dan Filipelli, a historic preservation consultant, said his biggest concern is the station's impact on the environment and the traffic congestion caused by trucks transporting waste to and from the station.

Filipelli said air inversion, where warm air over a low-lying area, such as Upper Marlboro, is trapped by cooler air blowing over from higher ground, trapping the warmer air—as well as pollution and odors—will make the transfer station a bigger burden on Upper Marlboro than it would be in other places.

"It will make life completely unbearable," Filipelli said.

E-mail Greg Holzheimer at gholzheimer@gazette.net.