My name is Janet Lacetera. My husband and I have lived at 1006 Whitaker Mill Road for 31 years. Our home is important to us both because we love this special and unique rural area and because it is the major investment of our lifetime. Our hopes, dreams, financial future and our lives are tied up in our home and property.

For these reasons, I am extremely concerned with the proposed addition of the Lutheran school at 701 Whitaker Mill Road. I have three major concerns. They deal with the impact the school will have on emergency services, water supply and quality of rural life here.

My most serious concern, because it could be a matter of life and death, has to do with the effect that increased traffic from the school will have on access of emergency vehicles to the Millwood Development and residents of Whitaker Mill Road who live south of the school. Many residents have already testified to the rural nature of Whitaker Mill Road and hazardous driving conditions. I am equally concerned that during peak school traffic hours, the 4-way stop at the intersection of Old Joppa Rd and Whitaker Mill Rd, and the proposed roundabout will represent potential choke points that will impede Emergency Vehicles attempting to respond to a fire or medical emergency through this single point of access.

Anyone who was unfortunate enough to be part of the gridlock, as I was, at the Tollgate roundabout during the holiday rush [Dec 22, 2005] will understand exactly what I am worried about. Traffic traveling north on Tollgate Road completely blockaded incoming traffic on Market Place Drive with the result that cars had to make U-turns to go back to Rt. 24 to find another way. The same thing could happen on Whitaker Mill Road. At the peak of the projected school traffic there will be hundreds of cars passing through the 4-way stop and circulating through the roundabout. The roundabout would favor school traffic entering the Roundabout from the west (old Joppa Road) over the traffic coming from the south along Whitaker Mill Road and create a backup all the way to the blind 90-degree curve that is one tenth of a mile south of the Millstad entrance.

A traffic lock-up at the 4-way stop and the Millstad entrance could lead to a disaster for anyone living south of the entrance having a medical emergency or a fire. Chief Schaech of the Bel Air Volunteer Fire Department recognized the risks and his assessment really scares me. I am 64 years old and have Rheumatoid Arthritis which can only get worse as I get older. Two of our neighbors [Mr. Abremski at 1008 and Mrs. Marlene Magness at 1100 Whitaker Mill Rd] have serious and life threatening health problems that could require Emergency Service intervention at any time. Our closest neighbor has already used the Emergency ambulance service several times. I do not want my life or my neighbor’s lives to be endangered because the Emergency Service vehicle cannot reach me or transport me to the hospital as the result of gridlock or congestion caused by the school traffic.

I also do not want to worry that I might die in a fire, or that my house and all the antiques that I have collected over a lifetime could be destroyed by fire because the fire trucks could not get through the traffic congestion at the school in time to save me or my home.

Secondly, I am very worried about the school’s impact on the water system which supplies our well water and the well water for the entire Millwood Community. Earlier Hearing testimony has stated that, per Maryland Department of the Environment Guidelines, potable water usage will be 4,950 gallons per day for the school. This amount of water usage is 99% of the 5000 gallon per day use that requires a Groundwater Appropriation Permit from the MDE, and I respectfully request that the Hearing Examiner ask that a GAP be required of the Applicant. If this alone, is not sufficient ground for a GAP. I respectfully request the Hearing Examiner take note of the fact that the Applicant intends to have a year-round athletic program similar to the one currently provided at Baltimore Lutheran School. The HLS athletic program described will also include use of a swimming pool. With such a program, the normal expectation would be that there would be shower facilities available, just as the Baltimore Lutheran School currently has. The MDE requires that an additional 10 gallons per day per student be allotted for showers. For a 300 person school that would mean an additional 3000 gallons use a day. Adding that to the 4950 gallons, usage would climb to 7490 gallons per day.

The school claims that it will not have shower facilities, but I find their position very difficult to accept. I swam competitively in high school, and I can not remember a pool facility that did not require showers prior to entering the pool to practice or compete. My husband coached girl’s track at John Carol High School and I accompanied him to the meets and practices. There were shower facilities for the athletes at the school to use after meets and workouts. Perhaps hygiene standards have been changed in the last 30-50 years, but I doubt it. I therefore respectfully request that the Hearing Examiner take the projected athletic program into consideration and ask that a GAP be submitted by the Applicants.

AG-zoned property is permitted to have 1 house per 10 acres or 4 houses on this property. Considering just 4950 gallon per day usage and applying the guideline provided by the Harford County Health Department of 225 gallons per day per household, the school will be using as much water as is required for 22 residential dwellings. If we were to include the additional 10 gallons per student per day required for showers then the equivalent number of houses jumps to 35. Whether 4950 or 7950 gallons per day - This is a massive increase in water usage.

I believe this drawdown will have a negative impact on nearby wells. The water system is already very fragile. Even though their records are incomplete, the MD Department of Environment shows a minimum of 27 wells that have had to be replaced, deepened or replaced with the old well as a back-up in the Whitaker Mill area. As an example, we have lived here since 1974 and during that period of time we personally have had two incidents where our 408 foot well was temporarily run dry [once by a garden hose that was left on too long and again by a burst pipe].  Mr. Barlow, the well driller, gave testimony to the effect that the older, shallow wells are susceptible to drought and dry up. This shows clearly the effect of increased demand on the water table with continuing development. Millwood is an old development, with most homes over 30 years old. While most Millwood residents are still using their original wells, there have been wells that dried up and had to be replaced or deepened in Millwood [at least 12].

We are therefore very vulnerable if new, large additional loads are imposed on the water table. I am definitely not at all convinced with assurances made by the Baltimore Lutheran School that the additional usage of about 5000 gallons per day will not affect our wells. And if there are shower facilities – what then?

I would like also to point out the situation in the community of Woodbridge Manor which lies directly to the northwest of Whitaker Mill Road and shares the same water system. This community was scheduled to be developed with water supplied by wells. However, the homes on Terry Way and in much of the Woodbridge Manor development were connected to city water because of septic system “perc” problems, insufficient water flow and well failure in some of the earlier built dwellings. The residents were very fortunate to have had this remedy.

We do not have that option along Whitaker Mill Road and in the Millwood Development. If our wells dry up we have no option except to dig new wells and hope they will not go dry again. We can not afford this kind of expense, and obviously having an at-risk water supply will destroy the value of our homes; homes that represent

our main source of financial security and major investment for our

old age.

When community residents have raised their concerns about a diminished water supply due to the school’s use, the Applicant [Mr. Mahoney] has made the point that we do not know if the school shares the same aquifer with us. On the other hand, the Applicant (he) does not know it is NOT same aquifer. Aquifers can be quite extensive, possible stretching for tens of miles, feeding hundreds of ground water wells and streams. [This is why usage of your well can influence other people miles away. USGS]

It seems to me that, a detailed study by the MD Dept of Natural Resources (MD Geological Survey) needs to be made to map the local aquifers and determine without a doubt that the school’s very large water requirement will not cause harm to the neighborhood wells.

At the Hearing on January 4, 2006, Lee and John Magness and Mike and Josh Pons voiced their reasons for rejecting the school at Millstad. This leads to my final concern: that if the school is permitted on this site, then within 5-10 years the Magness, Radke, and Country Life farms will be sold off for development. They will not be able to afford to farm or breed and raise thoroughbreds with all the extra traffic and noise and possible water shortages. Whitaker Mill Road will be widened to look just like Tollgate Road. The farm fields will be covered with tract houses instead of crops, livestock and thoroughbreds. I have to ask: Is it worth it, is it right to destroy our historic rural community over the resolute disapproval of its members especially those, whose families have farmed and raised thoroughbreds for generations for less than 300 families who do not even live in the community? I grew up in New York on Long Island when Suffolk County was still rural. We had potato farms, duck farms and small fishing villages with country roads just like Whitaker Mill Road. That rural way of life has completely disappeared, When I return to visit what I find is Suffolk County paved in cement and tract houses; the farmers and fishermen are long gone. We do not want this to happen here. We do not want to lose the farms and the open space with streams, brambles and wetland that provide a much needed habitat for birds and small animals, a filter for our water and a source of clean air. The continual and relentless over-development in Harford County must stop. We have the right to maintain the rural nature of our community and we would like county officials to understand that we do not want Whitaker Mill Road to undergo major alterations to support the heavy traffic that comes with unwanted development.

As I see it, allowing this school at 701 Whitaker Mill puts our homes and our investments in them in jeopardy. Even worse, the school puts our way of life as well as our actual lives in danger. What if our wells go dry or we have a fire that the Fire Department can not reach in time? What if one of us has a heart attack and dies or suffers unnecessary health damage from a stroke because the Emergency Service can not reach us in time because of school traffic? Is this school worth that?

We are not talking about a neighborhood school. These people are not part of the Whitaker Mill community. The students will be coming from all over Harford County and parts of Baltimore County. They are outsiders and have no interest or attachment to the Whitaker Mill area. They are clearly not concerned with the obvious and active community opposition they have met They attempt to present themselves as relieving some of the burden on current county school resources, but this school will provide for less than 1% of the total number of elementary through high school students in the county.

I respectfully ask that this school not be permitted at 701 Whitaker Mill Road. It places too great a burden on the residents of the area. A school of this size should be built only where it poses no risk to the water supply and the lives and general well being of an entire rural community. There are many such sites in Harford County and I urge the Applicants to consider them.

Finally, I am becoming very frustrated with the response to resident’s concerns. The Applicant appears to feel that many of the issues we raise need not be addressed because we are not so-called experts, although many of us have spent our careers in engineering, physics or mathematical modeling and simulation, and surely know how to interpret simple mathematical data; or that issues such as fire control should be solved later at the DAC when it is really too late. This is very disheartening from a group that professes to want to be an asset to the community and provide a values-based education for children, and then resorts to “legalese” to avoid addressing the community’s complaints. If the school is permitted to go forward without regard for our concerns, the Whitaker Mill area as we know and love it will be destroyed. I am completely opposed.