A proposed Union Mills Reservoir represents a half century of efforts by the Commissioners of the Carroll County, Maryland, to build variations on a "dam" or "reservoir" near Union Mills, Maryland, on the Big Pipe Creek, defeated by a petition led by the Carroll County Taxpayers' Committee in the 1970s. The plan may be alive among some county officials but may also be postponed "indefinitely." Land threatened by the reservoir includes the Whittaker Chambers Farm, also known as the Pipe Creek Farm, a National Historic Landmark as well as protected under the Maryland Agricultural Land Preservation Foundation (MALPF).
Description
According to a county report from the mid-1970s, the reservoir "will provide storage for sediment (1,125 acre-feet), flood control (6,414 acre-feet) municipal water supply (4,235 acre-feet) and recreation (1,210 acre-feet)." The reservoir would need 325 acres.
As for 2014, Carroll County government's plan was to have a Union Mills Reservoir provide 3.76 million/gallons/day with a normal pool elevation of 610 feet. The reservoir would serve as regional source of water supply for Westminster, Hampstead, Taneytown, and Manchester.
The Big Pipe Creek feeds into the Double Pipe Creek, which runs into the Monocacy River and on into the Chesapeake Bay.
History
According to a 2010 plan published by the community of Hampstead, Maryland: Since 1970, the Carroll County Water and Sewerage Master Plan has included the planned Union Mills Reservoir as a future water supply source to serve Hampstead, as well as Manchester and Westminster. The County has purchased a majority of the land needed for the reservoir. Community participants emphasized the importance of making realistic and concrete the plans for actually developing the reservoir as a water-supply resource that will adequately serve the Hampstead and Manchester communities.
1970s
In the 1970s, Carroll County Commissioners made a first proposal for a dam or reservoir.
In 1975, the Maryland Soil Conservation Service issued a draft plan for a Big Pipe Creek Watershed, whose purposes were "primarily for flood control" and "secondarily for water supply."
In February 1976, a "Carroll County Taxpayers' Committee" promised to oppose to the dam, Ted Lissauer announced, who also promised a public petition. In March 1976, the committee published an Opposition Statement to the Big Pipe Creek Watershed Plan. The committee also held a public informational meeting on the "Union Mills Dam controversy." In June 1976, Carroll County Commissioners published a report called Big Pipe Creek Watershed: Plan and Environmental Impact Statement. In its first pages appeared a five-page "agreement" signed by the "chairman" of a "Carroll County Conservation District," the president and secretary of the Carroll County Commissioners, a State Conservationist, and a "secretary" of the State of Maryland. It claimed to represent an agreement by the Carroll County Conservation District, the State of Maryland, and the United States Department of Agriculture (though no USDA official signed). The agreement would allow the Carroll County Commissioners to acquire land along the Big Pipe Creek for "improvements" to include a "multiple purpose reservoir and basic recreational facilities," paid for by the county. The report appeared in an appendix in the Federal Register dated August 1976 under "environmental impact statements which were reviewed and not commented on between July 1 and 31, 1976." The county's report included "only excerpts" from the Carroll County Taxpayers' Committee's opposition statement as 21 comments, followed by lengthy responses, all of which the country rejected or dismissed its responses. For example, when the committee complained that the costs of more than $6,000,000 hardly justified $16,000 in flood control benefits and thus had "no real flood control benefits," the country responded that these costs "should not be compared." (A full copy of the opposition statement went to the State Conservationist's Office, Soil Conservation Service, in College Park, Maryland).
The Carroll County Taxpayers' Committee raised more than 5,000 signatures for its petition (as required by law) to stop the dam.