PSEG plans to build the Md. Piedmont Reliability Project.
Frederick County Executive Jessica Fitzwater
Frederick, Md (KM) Frederick County has joined other local governments and other parties in asking the Public Service Commission to dismiss the application from Public Service Enterprise Group to construct the Maryland Piedmont Reliability Project. “We are joining a motion to actually dismiss the case due to the fact the schedule that the Public Service Commission has put out is really not going to allow this project to move in the time frame that they have to,” says Frederick County Executive Jessica Fitzwater, who was a guest recently on WFMD’s “Morning News Express.”
PSEG has asked for approval by the PSC by March, 2026, with the line up and running by June, 2027 PJM, which manages the regional grid, says the region could be subject to potential power blackouts and voltage collapse by June, 2027 if nothing’s done. . The PSC’s schedule pushes final briefs to February, 2027.
MPRP is a proposed 67-mile electric transmission line beginning in northern Baltimore County, continuing through central Carroll County and into southern Frederick County, ending at the Doubs substation in Adamstown. Opponents say Maryland won’t be seeing any of that electricity transmitting through those wires. Instead, it will be going to northern Virginia to power data centers.
Fitzwater says these electric lines will pass over a number of agricultural properties. “The route is proposed to go through land that is under agricultural easements.; land preservation easements, in some cases. floodplains or other natural sensitive areas,” she says. “These are in some cases farms where property owners have spent generations working this land, and putting their own investments into preserving this land.”
Even though local governments have no say in whether utility projects like MPRP, are approved or denied, Fitzwater says she and other officials and citizens can let the PSC know how they feel. “What we are doing is really amplifying the voice of our residents, especially the property owners that are being impacted by the proposed route,” she says.
In her comments on WFMD, County Executive Fitzwater says PSEG has done everything wrong when it comes to public outreach for the project. “From the beginning, this company—this New Jersey based company, PSEG—is just done really a poster child for how not to do community engagement, No communication with folks in the community that are going to be impacted by this; complete lack of transparency,” she says.
Despite the controversy about MPRP, Fitzwater says Maryland has some energy problems. “Pretty common knowledge that Maryland is an importer of energy and not a generator of energy,” she says. “And so this question is coming up. But we can’t let the need for change to impact these lands that we’re seeing happen with this proposed project.”
By Kevin McManus