State eyes buying homes, killing beetles on eroding Calvert cliffs
Some rare beetles and some homes may have to go on Calvert County's eroding Chesapeake Bay cliffs, a government panel has suggested.
A "steering committee" made up of federal, state and local agencies has proposed letting some cliffside homeowners shore up their patch of the crumbling bluffs, even if it means killing some legally protected Puritan tiger beetles. But the plan also calls for moving or buying those homes in imminent danger of falling into the bay, using a combination of federal and state funds.
This Solomonic proposal comes after eight months of talks about how to resolve conflicting concerns over the safety of Calvert's clifftop homeowners and the survival of the tiny beetles, which dwell in the cliffs below the human abodes. Brownish-bronze on top and blue on their bellies, Puritan tiger beetles are deemed threatened under the federal Endangered Species Act and endangered under Maryland's similar species law - meaning they're so close to becoming extinct it's illegal to kill or disrupt them.
It's not clear yet how many homes might be targeted for possible relocation or buyout, or what it would cost taxpayers. The plan urges Calvert County to seek federal emergency-management funds to complete a risk assessment. It also talks about tapping Maryland's Program Open Space fund to buy the houses or substitute beetle habitat. That may concern some, since that fund was originally set up to buy parkland and recreation spaces for Marylanders, and the real estate slump has shrunk the property transfer tax revenues available for preserving land.
A total of 234 homes are within 100 feet of the cliffs lining the bay in Calvert, and 83 are within 20 feet of the edge. The cliffs are losing a foot or two feet a year, but 10- to 15-foot chunks have fallen in following a recent storm. Twenty homes are within 10 feet, 19 within five feet and one house actually is hanging over already.
The plan was presented to the Calvert County commissioners this week. The Washington Post reported that many homeowners aren't satisfied. Those closest to the edge fear there won't be time for the county to secure the funds needed to move their homes, since the grant application is to go in by year's end.
Property owners have complained for years that they've been prevented from getting state or federal permits to shore up the base of the cliff beneath their homes because of the tiny beetles, which are found only in a few bluffs in Calvert, Kent and Cecil counties and in a stretch of similar habitat on the Connecticut River in New England.
A few owners have been allowed to pile boulders at the foot of their cliff, or take other shoreline stabilization measures. But the report notes that revetments and other control measures at the water's edge do not keep the tops from crumbling, and may worsen the undermining of cliffs on adjoining properties. Not to mention that shoreline stabilization may destroy the beetles' habitat, as they're found only in steep, bare cliff faces.
Even so, the government panel says the beetle population, estimated at only 2,000 last year, is still strong enough to withstand some losses, so some property owners may qualify for "incidental take" permits to destroy beetle habitat, though some mitigation would be required, probably restoring or protecting beetle habitat elsewhere.
The proposal also lays out options for longer-term responses to the problem once the immediate dangers are dealt with. But it notes that so far, no one has come up with a proven strategy for halting the cliffs' erosion. At least some of the land loss, officials say, stems from storm-water soaking into the ground atop the cliffs and weakening them.
To see the entire plan, go here. For more on the beetles, go here.
(Homeowner's fence hangs over cliff at Chesapeake Ranch Estates, March 2010 - Baltimore Sun photo by Barbara Haddock Taylor. Puritan tiger beetle - photo U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)
