Residents hire lawyers to save trees

Westminster (Map, News) - Westminster residents have hired lawyers to try to save 330 trees near Carroll County Regional Airport.

The county has maintained that the trees need to be cleared for pilots’ safety so a lighting system can be used that would let pilots better see the runway as they land their aircraft.

Skeptical residents, however, suspect it has to do with a runway expansion, from 5,100 to 6,400 feet, which county commissioners approved 2-1 last summer.

The county should wait to cut the trees because some of the areas will be studied in an environmental assessment that is the next step in the runway expansion process, said Westminster resident Rebekah Orenstein, who hired the attorneys with Mary Kowalski, also of Westminster.

“If they’re not directly affected, trees will be dragged across them,” Orenstein said.

“I just don’t understand why they can’t wait. If nothing else, they’re going to tremendously interrupt that area.”

Her attorney, Paul De Santis, agreed that if it is true that the trees are unrelated to the expansion, there should be no reason not to wait to cut them down.

“It seems that putting up the lights, creating these steps, if they’re not going to be necessary for a new runway to be approved, why don’t we just wait?” asked De Santis, who specializes in environmental law.

The county is to begin clearing the trees Monday, but if it does not agree to delay the cutting, De Santis said he would file an injunction that would force it to wait.

The environmental assessment taken on by Delta Airport Consultants Inc. was to begin in November and could take two years to complete, said Cindy Parr, the county’s chief of administrative services.

“I see it as money for the expansion is in the pipeline and they need to perform certain tasks before that money can come in,” Orenstein said.

County Attorney Kim Millender declined comment.

msilvestri@baltimoreexaminer.com

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