Last night (Monday May 5th, 2008) the DSS Board and about 25 residents met with representatives from Montgomery County to discuss proposed relocation of county services from Crabb's Branch Road to the Gude Drive Landfill site. There were three slide presentations and associated discussion on the topics. Turnout was very good at about 30 people total.

County Reps: 

Nancy Hislop - of the Montgomery County Up-. county Regional Services Center
Vineet Bhanot, Program Manager, Dept. of Public Works
Dianne Schwartz-Jones - Assistant Administrator for the County
other engineering and technical staff

The latest Master Plan redevelops the Crabb's Branch industrial area, from Redland Rd. to the ICC/370, into high density residential property, over the next 20 years (at the time of the County vote this was estimated at about 6000 units). As part of this process the different county services now on Crabb's Branch are going to be dispersed around the county to available large publicly held and privately held tracts of land. This includes the liquor warehouse, school bus service and parking, Parks and Planning truck service area, and some other county operations. Also the yard waste transfer is to be removed from the waste transfer station to reduce the congestion on that facility.

-The county representatives have committed to posting relevant project documents online - we will need to hold them to this, to have them provide a centralized repository of relevant documents and links.
-Primarily residents of the DSS HOA attended, the Ms. Hislop said she would get in touch with the other HOA's in the area

Crabb's Branch Notes:
-bus parking and service ~ 35 Acres
-Park's and Planning vehicle service ~ 10 Acres (estimate)
-liquor warehouse ~30 Acres (estimate)


Gude Landfill notes:
-mapped area - about 100 acres
-useable for bus depot - about 30-35 acres along the western edge (i.e. looking down at the first row of houses)
-yard waste facility - 2 acres now, to be expanded to 6 acres
-environmental, traffic and other studies have not been done, nor has the Planning Department approved these changes
-County property and it goes to mandatory referral to the County Planning agency (?) for review
-On old planning documents the dump was to be redeveloped as a park (some consternation was expressed on this point by residents) 


Presentations:

Topic 1) Yard waste transfer point

-the current yard waste transfer point is at the waste transfer station, and it competes with other services for vehicle traffic through the transfer stations, the majority of this facility would be moved to the Gude landfill 
-current yard waste traffic is about 200 commercial vehicles a day, mostly during the middle of the day period
-yard waste is composted in Clarksburg (?) or overflow is sent to Pennsylvania, and this would remain
-the county already uses about a 2 acre pad to hold overflow yard waste during peak spring and fall periods.
-proposal is to enlarge the pad to 6 acres and improve the access off of Southlawn Rd.
-environmental and traffic studies still to be done, vehicles come from all directions so future traffic flow is unknown
-a hearing at the Silver Spring Planning Board is anticipated within 45 days
-about a 2 year site development schedule including compressing/preloading the affected dump area with soil, and then removing the sand and building the pad and facilities
-the facility is on the far side of the dump, on a hill going down away from us - no direct view, some distance away


Topic 2) Gude Landfill Gas reclamation

-the dump outgases methane and carbon dioxide as the internal materials decay
-an existing array of plastic tubing and pumps are located at the site, and these will remain to collect the gases 
-initial gas output was sufficient to drive 3 MW of generator engines for about 20 years, until the equipment reached end of life in 2006, and the gas has been flared off since then.
-replacement generator engines are sized at 0.8 MW, due to reduced gas output, and are off the shelf self-contained equipment to be sited where the old engines were. They are intended to be quieter than the old engines, with a 7-10 year payback. 
-the engines were and the new engine will be sited behind a sound deflecting wall located near the men's shelter
-off the shelf equipment that is quick to install
-Notice of April 23rd meeting to discuss this was published in the Rockville Gazette, nobody came to the meeting, but we are now aware of it


Topic 3) Resiting of the local county school bus depot

-the current site is being converted to high density residential development and the buses are going to be moved
-Driving force is the Sector Plan for Shady Grove
-Gude Landfill is county owned and located close to the current bus depot
-school buses are stored in depots near where they are used, to reduce travel distances, moving the bus depot to Clarksburg is seen as not efficient
-development time at Gude Landfill is about 3 years to preload the dump site and build the facilities
-only initial suitability study has been done
-traffic study not done yet, access road location not given, detailed planning not done
-selected land is overlooking the nearest row of houses
-350 buses - morning and afternoon (will also include and equivalent number of drivers who have to drive here in their own vehicles)
-the buses service the local area in all directions
-fuel storage on site - not clear


Other information

-other county facilities on Crabb's Branch will be moved to other large tracts of land in the county - i.e. public safety training site, liquor warehouse, education related services (not clear what these were)
-the Public Safety Training Academy is also moving their location (about 52 Acres) and is competing for space in the move planning
-several private properties are involved in this moving process including the Web Tract (130 Acres/90 Acres useable) and Casey (42 Acres - Shady Grove and Crabb's Branch) 


Map link: http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?hl=en&ie=UTF8&msa=0&msid=110087080066255906615.00000111c21257432037e&t=h&z=16