The end of autumn brings the 9th annual Festival of Trees . . .so MARK YOUR CALENDARS for November 25 and 26 for a terrific family holiday event. (All proceeds benefit the Dove Center www.dovecenter.org). The event takes place the Friday and Saturday after Thanksgiving Day at the Garrett County Fairgrounds Exhibit Building.
Start your morning with BREAKFAST WITH SANTA on either Friday or Saturday at the 9 a.m. or 10 a. m. seating with your BUDDY THE ELF Ticket ($10 per person). The $5 per person General Admission is included with a full breakfast, a gift for children, and priority in line for a professional photo with Santa in his sleigh. Reservations are strongly recommended but not required. For advance reservations, call Sherry 301-746-8117 or email sherbrad@verizon.net. You can also use Pay Pal on the website: www.fotgc.org – Deadline for reservations is November 21 — and it is never too early to RSVP.
Even if you skip the Breakfast, you can pay $5 per person general admission. MRS CLAUS’ KITCHEN is open serving modestly priced foods and beverages until 5 p.m. Friday and 4 p.m. Saturday, sponsored by Sorrellee’s/Zipeez Market . And you can MAKE YOUR OWN SUNDAE with Lakeside Creamery’s homemade ice cream. Enjoy the FREE entertainment that includes SuGO interactive Lego robotics demos Friday and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Enjoy the many local vendors with homemade crafted items, and others, for special items you won’t find in stores.
Children love Santa and his friends and Mrs. Santa, and this year features Buddy The Elf! You can get pictures with the costumed characters and you can take your own pictures with Santa in his sleigh beginning around noon both days. (Breakfast With Santa has priority.) FROSTY’S FUNLAND has free kids’ activities and SANTA’S BAKERY where they decorate their own cookies. At ELFENHEIM MALL they can shop for only $1 per item for their friends and family gifts. Parents are amazed at the quality items donated for the Mall. Please note that these activities close at 4pm on Saturday so we can set up for our LIVE AUCTION that begins at 6 PM.
SILENT AUCTION is Friday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Saturday 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday evening you are called if you win the bid to be picked up on Sunday from 10 a.m. to 2 p. m. if you cannot get them Saturday before 6 p.m. Vendors donate one of their items as do our local individuals and organizations. What a fun way to support the Dove Center’s efforts for the victims of domestic violence and sexual assault.
It’s all about the joy and beauty of the creatively designed trees, wreaths, centerpieces and gingerbread houses! All these are donated by our talented community individuals, students and organizations to support the Dove Center, Garrett County’s domestic violence and sexual assault resource center. The deadline for designer entries is October 31st to be included in our event program given to visitors. Entry information on www.fotgc.org
At 4 p.m. on Saturday, PAUL BURGER on guitar will be on stage to perform for us until the Live Auction starts promptly at 6 p.m. The vendors, kitchen, kids’ activities, all close at 4 p.m. The bar is open by 5 p.m., sponsored by Dutch’s at Silver Tree, with all proceeds to benefit the Dove Center.
Come see who the judges award the prize ribbons and don’t miss the LIVE AUCTION. Saturday at 6 p.m. promptly begins the GRAND FINALE LIVE AUCTION! At 5 p.m., Bidders will be treated to complimentary foods sponsored by Dutch’s at Silver Tree. In addition to the trees, wreaths and gingerbread houses, there will also be special items up for bidding that will make great gifts for any reason and any season. Taylor-Made Deep Creek Vacations will safely deliver your tree FREE to your local home or business using a box truck sponsored by Black Bear Tavern, when you make arrangements at the front desk as you pay.
It is with the support of these wonderful sponsors that help make this event possible: Crossroads Church, Sorrellee’s Pizza Pub and Ice Cream Parlor, Taylor-Made Deep Creek Vacations and Sales, Dutch’s at Silver Tree, Black Bear Tavern, Mt Top Tree Farm, Lakeside Creamery, Little Mountain Promotions, Allegany Hearing and Balance,Nu Way Cleaners, Computer Consulting Services, Website Design and Management Team/David Lantz and Robyn Billings, CLS Printing,Lake-Front Magazine, Deep Creek Marina, Spring Creek Outfitters, West Central Equipment/John Deere, Master Craft Printers, The Republican Newspaper and Paul Burger, performer.
My assistant, Ally, and I spent an October morning driving around the lake and enjoying the weather. I love it when it gets to this point in the year- all of Western Maryland is absolutely stunning.
Arguably the best location at the lake! Deep Creek Village is right on the water AND directly across the street from Wisp Ski Resort! Enjoy year-round activity (and income!) in this vacation rental townhome.
GA9778539
Dock privileges available through association, community tennis courts and walking distance to ski lodge, dining, entertainment & shopping. Lower level BR currently used as 2nd living area.
OAKLAND, Md. — It’s a big lake, largest in Maryland. It sprawls with fingers of water scooting off in at least two major directions.
Deep Creek Lake just celebrated its 90th year created as a hydroelectric project in 1925. The generator still works but today the lake is centerpiece of a bustling tourism industry although wilderness remains everywhere. It has virgin hemlock stands — the only ones in the state. Savage River State Forest land to the east of the lake area adds 54,000 more wilderness acres. And it’s all scarcely 90 minutes from the Eastern Panhandle.
We began our getaway visit with a plunge into wilderness, searching out the four waterfalls in Swallow Falls State Park located not on the lake but on the Youghiogheny River along with other forest areas. Unfortunately, it’s been a dry end-of-summer and only the highest of the four — Muddy Falls at 53 feet — was rushing in a spectacular fashion over the rocks. We wrestled with inadequate signage and maps to visit three of the four falls, and once we’d figured out how it all fit together, helped guide other hikers we met along the trails. Impressive boulders fill the various streams. The park was once a legendary pioneer hunting area and the virgin hemlock and white pine forests that we walked through to find the falls were magical.
Swallow Falls is easily identifiable by Swallow Rock, a marvelously weathered pillar standing adjacent to the falls. We bypassed Lower Falls, warned away by fellow hikers but did make the trek to Tolliver Falls, barely a ripple over rocks in this season.
As a Baltimore City resident and a homeowner in Garrett County, I think the most recent round of regulations proposed by the Maryland Department of the Environment fall far short of adequately protecting the environment and citizens from the dangers of hydraulic fracturing.
The MDE’s proposals make it clear that the only “regulatory” course of action is for the public’s representatives in Annapolis to approve a complete ban on fracking next year.
In recent years we have gone from a mandate in which the state would only permit fracking if there were no “unacceptable” risks, to a set of proposals that accepted some moderate and high-level risks, and finally to the current proposal, which reduces previous protections and seeks to codify moderate and high-level risks as the norm.
The latest proposals increase the drilling site well pad setbacks from personal water wells from their previously proposed 1,000 feet to 2,000 feet. This is an improvement but still far from adequate.
The governor’s commission previously identified 2,000 feet as posing a moderate risk; a minimum of 3,200 feet would pose a low-level risk and be much safer. The new regulations propose only a 300-foot setback from streams and wetlands.
Keep in mind that fracking could well come to over half of the state. Citizens should seriously consider whether it is acceptable to have hydraulic fracturing operations a mere 300 feet from streams, rivers, wetlands and the Chesapeake Bay.
Nobody, except those who stand to make a profit, wants their natural environments industrialized in this way. Nobody wants the dangers of fracking in their backyard.
In its June 2016 proposals, the MDE identified fracking restrictions for Western Maryland watersheds that eventually flow into the Potomac River and through heavily populated areas of the state.
In the recent proposal, MDE adds the Deep Creek Lake watershed to its restricted list, in what can only be considered a cynical effort to appease wealthy property owners. Of course, most people on Deep Creek Lake know that fracking anywhere in Western Maryland destroys the natural environment as well as their property values on the lake.
Even so these protections still leave two-thirds of Garrett County — the Youghiogheny River watershed — vulnerable to the dangers of fracking.
Implicit in MDE’s proposed watershed restrictions is the idea that these environments and the people who live there need to be protected from the harms of unregulated industrialization. But apparently the environment and people in the Youghiogheny Watershed don’t merit such protections.
In what amounts to a “get a bigger hammer” approach, MDE suggests adding another layer of well-casing in drilling operations. Again, implicit in this idea is an acknowledgment that well casings are imperfect and that they frequently fail, allowing flow back contaminants to seep into the ground and contaminate water supplies, animals and people.
As for the methane emissions that contribute even more to global warming and climate change than carbon dioxide, MDE essentially leaves that responsibility to the gas industry itself.
It’s clear that MDE is under-resourced and unprepared to regulate emissions and most other aspects of the hydraulic fracturing process. These are just a few of the concerns that arise from the recently released regulatory proposals.
The problems associated with the hydraulic fracturing at every stage of the process make it clear that a fracking industry that has proven so irresponsible has no business operating in Maryland. There is only one course of action citizens can take and that is to support a total ban on fracking in the state.
The Hogan administration has proposed rules that would prohibit the gas-drilling technique known as fracking within 2,000 feet of a private drinking water well, require steel casings around gas bores to a depth of 100 feet, and require energy companies to replace any water supply that is contaminated by the practice.
The Maryland Department of the Environment submitted the measures Monday to a legislative committee that reviews regulations, a year before a state ban on fracking ends.
The plan was unveiled five days ahead of the Oct. 1 deadline set by lawmakers for the rules to be formally adopted. Department of the Environment officials now expect the approval process to finish by the end of the year instead.
Secretary Ben Grumbles said the rules “will be the most stringent and protective environmental shale regulations in the country.”
The Appalachian Regional Commission has approved a $500,000 grant to the Garrett County Commission for water infrastructure at Keyser’s Ridge Business Park.Commissioners requested funding to construct the plant and associated infrastructure that will serve the business park and surrounding community. The plant will be constructed on Puzzley Run.
The project will leverage private investment, create jobs, improve the local community and provide 14 businesses and 22 households with improved access to water infrastructure, officials said. Construction of the plant will lessen the burden being placed on the existing Grantsville water treatment plant, which is operating with a negative production capacity.
In addition to ARC funds, state sources will provide $800,000, bringing the total project funding to $1.3 million.
