(2/21) The Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) has scheduled a public information hearing on Lochland Ag & Turf’s application to draw up to 576,000 gallons of water per day from Israel Creek. The hearing will take place at the Walkersville Town Office on March 18 at 2 in the afternoon.
At the hearing, MDE staff members will solicit public input on their concurs related to the effect on the Creek’s health as a result of water being drawn from it. Based upon the public input, MDE will determine if the permit should be issued, and if issued, the amount of water that can be drawn will be limited.
Lochland stated that they were looking to draw a daily average of 139,500 gallons, with a peak usage during their busiest months of 576,000 gallons of water per day. In response to concerns raised by residents over the impact of the amount of water proposed to be withdrawn, Lochland owner, Matthew Toms, stated that the Business had been "drawing water from Israel Creek for years."
Toms went on to claim that the proposed permitted water draw would "amount to less then 1 percent of the daily flow of the Creek," and "any reduction in flow to the Creek will be insignificant." Based upon Toms’ permit request however, one percent would imply that the Creek’s flow rate is approximately 14 million gallons per day.
To put Toms’ 14 million gallons a day figure into perspective, the flow rate of the full Monocacy River at Bridgeport, just north of Woodsboro, where the State has a flow measuring station, is just 11 million gallons per day.
When contacted, the County was unable to confirm Toms’ estimate that he would be drawing less than 1% of the water in Israel Creek. A representative of the County’s Division of Energy and Environment said they had no idea what the water flow rate was in the Israel Creek, as they had no flow monitoring stations on the Creek.
"Without a flow measuring system, we don’t have a basis for determining how much water flows in Israel Creek, so we have no way of knowing if the applicant will be drawing more than one percent of the water in the Creek, a key condition for the approval of the permit."
The representative said that the MDE usually just accepts, as fact, what is submitted in permit applications by applicants and does not do any research into the veracity of information in the applications, or their potential adverse impact on the environment unless it is brought to their attention by a member of the public.
The potential drawing of tens-of-millions of gallons of water from Israel Creek drew sharp rebukes from residents when the mandatory notification letter, submitted by Lochland to adjoining landowners, was posted on Facebook.
Many expressed concern that Lochland would be attempting to draw the maximum amount permitted during the driest months of the year, the very time Israel Creek "barely flows at all," and when trees and animals need it the most, said one resident.
