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>Just listed-Cedar Shores-Lakefront-Log-Townhome-GA7537216

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Log home style townhome with lake frontage and beautiful lake and slope views. This 5 bedroom, 4 bath end unit is in excellent condition and offers the perfect access to all area amenities.

Contact Jay Ferguson @ 301-501-0420 or DeepCreekLaker@Gmail.com for more information or to setup a private showing for this property.

Listing # GA7537216
$659,000

If you are thinking of buying or selling real estate in Garrett County or Deep Creek Lake, Maryland, call Jay Ferguson of Railey Realty for all of your real estate needs! 877-563-5350

Deep Creek Do It All specializes in cleaning services in Garrett County & @ Deep Creek Lake. Give them a call (301-501-0217) or visit the website – competitive rates and quality results from a locally owned & operated company!

>Garrett coalition concerned about teens’ behavior

>Survey shows increased use of alcohol, cigarettes, drugs by students
Anonymous Cumberland Times-News The Cumberland Times-News Mon Feb 28, 2011, 07:47 AM EST

OAKLAND — Members of the Garrett County Drug Free Communities Coalition are concerned about trends in destructive behavior demonstrated by county teens.

A Youth Risk Behavior survey was administered to all county students in grades six through 12 in March 2010. The data from the 1,941 surveys has been analyzed and the results were shared with coalition members at their February meeting.

Students were asked to report at what age they first tried cigarettes, alcohol or marijuana; how often they had used one of the substances in the past 30 days; their perception of parental disapproval; and the perception of potential risk of using any of the substances.

Results indicated that more than half of all 12th-grade students have drunk alcohol; 30 percent have smoked cigarettes; and more than 22 percent admitted using marijuana or smokeless tobacco.

Survey results indicated that the use of cigarettes was introduced at a younger age than marijuana or alcohol, but that younger students are trying those substances at an earlier age. Sixth-graders indicated an average age of 9 for trying all three substances. The average age of onset reported by 12th-graders was significantly higher, ranging from 13 for cigarettes, 12 for alcohol and 13 for marijuana.

Ninety-two percent of sixth- and eighth-grade students indicated that their parents would say use of any of those substances is very wrong. However, that number decreased to 64 percent of students in 12th grade who thought their parents would find those types of behavior very wrong.

A high percentage of all students indicated a belief that smoking is harmful — 87 percent of sixth-graders and 68 percent of 12th-graders. Results were similar for marijuana use with 90 percent of sixth-grade students but just 52 percent of seniors. Alcohol use was looked down on by 60 percent of sixth-grade students and 37 percent of seniors. Students were also asked to report on their use of prescription drugs. Just 1.8 percent of sixth-grade students reported using prescription drugs to “get high,” but that number rose to 12.5 percent of seniors.

One of the more startling results of the survey revealed that very few males in grades 11 and 12, 27 percent and 20 percent, respectively, perceived having one or two drinks per day a great or moderate risk.

The coalition meets monthly to discuss and address problems relating to drug and alcohol treatment and prevention issues facing the youth of Garrett County.

In the past year, the coalition has launched a program called “Majority Rules.” Statistics have shown that seven out of 10 Northern and Southern Garrett schools students do not drink.

Coalition members plan to continue to study these statistics and modify their plan of action to address areas of great concern or where results indicate an increasing risk to the well-being of Garrett County youth. The group will continue its support for the seven Students Against Destructive Decisions that exist in the county and continue its community initiatives.

County Health Officer Rodney Glotfelty said the results of the survey will prove invaluable in future efforts of the coalition and thanked the Garrett County Board of Education for allowing and supporting the administration of this survey.

The coalition is comprised of area residents and representatives from the health department, government agencies and the school system. Kerri Margoff, a field supervisor with Garrett County Division of Parole and Probation, chairs the group.

The next meeting will be held at 11:45 a.m. on March 9 at the Garrett County Health Department.

Contact Angie Brant at abrant@times-news.com

If you are thinking of buying or selling real estate in Garrett County or Deep Creek Lake, Maryland, call Jay Ferguson of Railey Realty for all of your real estate needs! 877-563-5350

Deep Creek Do It All specializes in cleaning services in Garrett County & @ Deep Creek Lake. Give them a call (301-501-0217) or visit the website – competitive rates and quality results from a locally owned & operated company!

>Let’s look before we leap when it comes to Marcellus shale gas

>To the Editor:
The Cumberland Times-News Sun Feb 27, 2011, 08:00 AM EST

Have you ever seen an orange stream in Allegany or Garrett County? Have you ever stood beside one? Did you ever drink the water? Have you ever gone fishing in one of these streams?

For most Allegany-Garrett County residents, the answers to these questions are “yes,” “yes,” “no,” “no” respectively. Our orange, acidified, lifeless waterways are an ever-present reminder of the long-term impacts of uninformed resource extraction.

Acid-mine drainage is caused by runoff from coal mines depleted and abandoned oftentimes more than one-hundred years ago.

Yet, we still live with the negative impacts today and our state has spent millions of dollars trying unsuccessfully to remediate the problem.

Next quiz questions: “How long ago did the Marcellus shale deposit form beneath the land of our counties?” Answer: “Millions of years ago.” “How long will the supply fuel our nation?” Answer: “15-20 years.”

“How will the price of natural gas change over the next 50 years?” Answer: “It will likely increase.”

“What are the negative impacts of gas fracking and how long will we live with those negative impacts upon our drinking water, streams, farms, and landscape?” Answer: “Nobody really knows yet.”

So, what are we to conclude? The lessons of acid-mine drainage tell us that if we can “look before we leap” then we should. Pennsylvania has moved quickly on gas fracking over recent years and there are many wells being actively pumped.

We can learn much from our nearby predecessor who has already “leaped.”

Scientists are closely analyzing the impacts of these wells and others around our region. The EPA will be publishing a report on this topic in 2012.

I suggest that we “look” at what happens from a safe distance of 50-plus miles and then decide after five years or more how we in Maryland should proceed.

The supply and demand economics of Marcellus shale tell us that it has been there for millions of years, that it will not disappear, and that the price for the resource will continue to rise.

While I know that our economy could use a boost now, I am confident that the extraction of natural gas from the shale will provide a similar or better financial return 5 to 10 years from now.

The good news about resource extraction today, compared to the coal-mining days of 100 years ago, is that we have the benefits of data gathering methods, environmental analysis and other scientific tools that were unheard of at that time. We should use these tools.

As one who is concerned about the well-being of local friends and family, I am excited about the potential for local cleaner-burning natural gas. Yet, I think we should only proceed after we have taken the most careful measures to protect our citizens for the long-term.

I don’t think we should “leap” just yet. I support a moratorium on gas fracking and encourage our citizens, council members, commissioners, representatives, senators, and governor to do the same.

Tom Kozikowski

Frostburg

AP Environmental Science Teacher

Mountain Ridge High School

If you are thinking of buying or selling real estate in Garrett County or Deep Creek Lake, Maryland, call Jay Ferguson of Railey Realty for all of your real estate needs! 877-563-5350

Deep Creek Do It All specializes in cleaning services in Garrett County & @ Deep Creek Lake. Give them a call (301-501-0217) or visit the website – competitive rates and quality results from a locally owned & operated company!

>Naturalists at Oregon Ridge demonstrate how maple syrup is made

>Joe Warfield, 77, a long time volunteer from Reisterstown, watches over the evaporator and checks the sap/syrup’s point in the evaporation process making sure not to over boil the sap. (Brendan Cavanaugh/P3 Imaging, BALTIMORE SUN / February 26, 2011)

By Jessica Anderson, The Baltimore Sun

8:31 p.m. EST, February 26, 2011
E-mail Print Share Text Size bs-md-co-maple-sugar-20110226
At first, the clear liquid doesn’t quite resemble the thick, gooey brown substance dribbled across pancakes and French toast, but naturalists assured the crowds gathered Saturday at Oregon Ridge Park that the sap tapped from maple trees, with a little elbow grease, would make maple syrup.

Several hundred came for tours led by the Baltimore County park employees over the weekend for the annual Maple Sugar Weekend held each February, when weather conditions help the flow of sap with cold nights and warmer days.

“It was really informational,” said Lawrence Almengor of Harford County, who came with his wife, three young children and his parents. He said he and his wife, Briana Almengor, home-school their 6-year-old twin sons Tucker and Judah and daughter Bella, 4.

“Anything they can experience hands-on like that is great,” said Briana Almengor.

Lawrence Almengor said his kids weren’t the only ones learning. “I didn’t know you could make sap using different trees,” he said.

“I didn’t realize it wasn’t sticky, I learned a lot,” his wife said, adding that she didn’t realize that Maryland had its own maple syrup producers.

The state is not among the top 10 maple producers, but several farms continue to tap sap, mostly in Western Maryland, where Garrett County was the maple capital of the U.S. in 1928, according to a 2009 Frederick News-Post article.

Read the full article here.

If you are thinking of buying or selling real estate in Garrett County or Deep Creek Lake, Maryland, call Jay Ferguson of Railey Realty for all of your real estate needs! 877-563-5350

Deep Creek Do It All specializes in cleaning services in Garrett County & @ Deep Creek Lake. Give them a call (301-501-0217) or visit the website – competitive rates and quality results from a locally owned & operated company!

>Nearly 1,000 expected at Deep Creek Lake dunk

>Saturday – 2/26/2011, 7:10am ET
MCHENRY, Md. (AP) – Organizers say hundreds of people will brave temperatures in the upper 30s to take a dip in Deep Creek Lake for charity.

The annual event Saturday in McHenry benefits Special Olympics of Maryland.

In 2010, about 350 people participated despite near-blizzard conditions, and raised about $150,000.

The weather forecast for this year’s event includes partial sunshine.

Full article here.

If you are thinking of buying or selling real estate in Garrett County or Deep Creek Lake, Maryland, call Jay Ferguson of Railey Realty for all of your real estate needs! 877-563-5350

Deep Creek Do It All specializes in cleaning services in Garrett County & @ Deep Creek Lake. Give them a call (301-501-0217) or visit the website – competitive rates and quality results from a locally owned & operated company!

>Goodbye, Negro Mountain

>Blair Lee | My Maryland

Perhaps you mistakenly believed that Maryland lawmakers were preoccupied with the state’s budget crisis or the $33 billion unfunded public employees’ pension and health care liabilities or the spike in home foreclosures or the unemployment rate.

No, despite these pressing problems, our state lawmakers still have plenty of time for contentious racial arm wrestling. The latest Culture War clash over racial symbols and “gotcha” politics involves renaming mountains and replacing statues.

Two African-American state senators want to rewrite history more to their liking.

Sen. Lisa Gladden (D-Baltimore city) recently discovered a height in faraway Garrett County named Negro Mountain. According to Western Maryland lore, the mountain was named in honor of a black frontiersman who died in the French and Indian Wars defending white settlers against hostile Indians, now called “Native Americans,” not to be confused with illegal immigrants, now dubbed “New Americans.”

Read the full article here.

If you are thinking of buying or selling real estate in Garrett County or Deep Creek Lake, Maryland, call Jay Ferguson of Railey Realty for all of your real estate needs! 877-563-5350

Deep Creek Do It All specializes in cleaning services in Garrett County & @ Deep Creek Lake. Give them a call (301-501-0217) or visit the website – competitive rates and quality results from a locally owned & operated company!

>Lots of rain ahead; flood watch in Garrett

>The dry, crisp, clear air that made the quarter moon so sharp in the sky just before sunrise today will give way on Thursday to increasing clouds and a significant rainstorm.

Forecasters out at Sterling are expecting 1 to 2 inches of rain here late Thursday into Friday as a storm system now over the southwestern states moves east along the jet stream and crosses our region on Friday. There’s even a chance for thunderstorms breaking out Friday morning southeast of wherever the low finally decides to track.

That’s a lot of rain. The National Weather Service has issued a Flood Watch for Garrett County, in extreme Western Maryland, in effect from Thursday afternoon through Friday morning. Out there. forecasters expect 1 to 1.5 inches of rain to be augmented by an additional half-inch of snow melt. That could flood streams and creeks and low-lying areas.

“A FLOOD WATCH MEANS THERE IS A POTENTIAL FOR FLOODING BASED ON CURRENT FORECASTS. YOU SHOULD MONITOR FORECASTS AND BE ALERT FOR POSSIBLE FLOOD WARNINGS. THOSE LIVING IN AREAS PRONE TO FLOODING SHOULD BE PREPARED TO TAKE ACTION SHOULD FLOODING OCCUR.”

Read the full article here.

If you are thinking of buying or selling real estate in Garrett County or Deep Creek Lake, Maryland, call Jay Ferguson of Railey Realty for all of your real estate needs! 877-563-5350

Deep Creek Do It All specializes in cleaning services in Garrett County & @ Deep Creek Lake. Give them a call (301-501-0217) or visit the website – competitive rates and quality results from a locally owned & operated company!

>Two-year delay proposed in shale gas drilling

>Officials want more time to study risks in Western Maryland
By Timothy B. Wheeler, The Baltimore Sun

8:48 p.m. EST, February 23, 2011

O’Malley administration officials told state lawmakers Wednesday that they need up to two years more to study the risks of drilling for natural gas in Marcellus shale deposits in Western Maryland before deciding whether to let the controversial practice go forward.

Testifying before the House Environmental Matters Committee, Robert M. Summers, Maryland’s acting secretary of the environment, said he and other administration officials plan a comprehensive evaluation of the potential health and environmental effects of hydraulic fracturing, the technique used to extract gas from shale layers far underground.

“We want to make sure we thoroughly understand what we’re doing, what the consequences would be, before we proceed,” Summers said. He and John R. Griffin, Maryland’s secretary of natural resources, spoke in favor of a bill that would impose a temporary moratorium on drilling until adequate safeguards are in place to prevent contamination of drinking-water wells, pollution of mountain streams and other problems.

Read the full article here.

If you are thinking of buying or selling real estate in Garrett County or Deep Creek Lake, Maryland, call Jay Ferguson of Railey Realty for all of your real estate needs! 877-563-5350

Deep Creek Do It All specializes in cleaning services in Garrett County & @ Deep Creek Lake. Give them a call (301-501-0217) or visit the website – competitive rates and quality results from a locally owned & operated company!

>Officials asked to invest in trail system

>Garrett group wants $500,000 for Continental Divide Loop
Kristin Harty Barkley
Cumberland Times-News The Cumberland Times-News Wed Feb 23, 2011, 07:42 AM EST

OAKLAND — A group that wants to create a connected trail system in Garrett County is asking the Garrett County Board of Commissioners for $100,000 a year for five years to get the project off the ground.

Mike Dreisbach, vice president of Garrett Trails, said the payoff could be exponential.

“Allegany County got $500,000 from commissioners for their section of the Great Allegheny Passage,” said Dreisbach, who also serves on the Mountain Maryland Trails board.

“It came, basically, from hotel/motel occupancy tax. Their half-a-million-dollar investment gets them between $5 (million) and $6 million a year now in direct and indirect spending in that little 22-mile stretch. … We’re asking you to invest in tourism,” he said at last week’s public meeting.

Commissioners are in the process of drafting the county’s fiscal 2012 budget, which should be available for public perusal in the next few weeks. Considering the state budget crisis and the national recession, funding is expected to be extremely tight.

Garrett County’s hotel tax is 5 percent and generates about $1.5 million a year. Last year, county officials asked the state legislative delegation to introduce a bill that would allow them to raise the tax to 8 percent, but later retracted the request because of opposition from business owners.

Last week, Dreisbach and Garrett Trails President Steve Green gave a 20-minute presentation to commissioners, all of whom are new to the board this year.

Garrett Trails, which formed more than a decade ago, is developing plans for a trail network approximately 150 miles long that will connect many of the county’s towns to the Great Allegheny Passage. One segment, being called the Continental Divide Loop, would come off the passage at Meyersdale, Pa., to Penn Alps Restaurant, and then off the passage at Confluence, Pa., and eventually to Friendsville.

“The trail offers amazing and spectacular views,” said Dreisbach, adding that it would include some water routes, as well as opportunities for hiking and biking. “We envision this as an opportunity for people to say, ‘I did the loop.’ The draw of that is pretty spectacular.”

Garrett Trails received a $30,000 grant from the Appalachian Regional Commission last summer and hopes to begin construction on some segments later this year.

“We have a lot of momentum going, a lot of interest,” said Green, co-owner of High Mountain Sports.

Last year, close to 85,000 people used the Great Allegheny Passage, a 135-mile trail from Cumberland to Duquesne, Pa. In 2010, the GAP generated about $85 million in revenue. In 2009, about 66,000 people used the trail, generating about $65 million, Dreisbach said.

“It’s had a big impact on all the businesses along the trail,” said Dreisbach, who owns Savage River Lodge. “It’s brought new businesses to the area. … When we talk about our Continental Divide Loop, we’ve got a similar thing. Actually, we’ve got some better things up here. We’ve got the history, all the scenic things. We never really tied everything together. It’s really a great opportunity for us.”

Green and other Garrett Trails representatives at-tended Mountain Maryland PACE events this year, trying to gain support from local and state officials.

“It really does boil down to, we need money,” Dreisbach told commissioners last week. “There are private people out there who are wanting to put money into it, but they’re wanting to see some ownership from the government and other people in the county. We’d get more traction in this whole process if we could just get some investment.”

Contact Kristin Harty Barkley at kbarkley@times-news.com

If you are thinking of buying or selling real estate in Garrett County or Deep Creek Lake, Maryland, call Jay Ferguson of Railey Realty for all of your real estate needs! 877-563-5350

Deep Creek Do It All specializes in cleaning services in Garrett County & @ Deep Creek Lake. Give them a call (301-501-0217) or visit the website – competitive rates and quality results from a locally owned & operated company!

>Groundbreaking set for gas line

>(Source: The Dominion Post (Morgantown, W.Va.))By Michelle Wolford, The Dominion Post, Morgantown, W.Va.
Feb. 23–KINGWOOD — A groundbreaking is set for a gas-gathering line proposed nearly a year ago.

Ken Magyar, director of business development for Superior Appalachian Pipeline Co., told Preston County Commissioners on Tuesday that a ceremony is planned for 11 a.m. March 1 to kick off the project. Those attending are to park at the VFW Post on W.Va. 26 in Bruceton Mills.

“We will not start work until the back half or later in March,” he said. The 16-mile pipeline, which begins on Coal Lick Road about 2 miles north of Albright, will connect with a Columbia Gas transmission line in Pennsylvania. The underground line will collect gas from area wells and transport it to Pennsylvania…

…Also Tuesday, commissioners:

Agreed to provide a letter of support for Tom McKee who is developing a portfolio for his plan to construct a vintage motorsport park and museum in Terra Alta. McKee said the complex would incorporate historical exhibits with vintage motorsport events, including motorcycles, cars and planes and take advantage of tourism efforts already under way at Deep Creek Lake, Md., Canaan Valley, Alpine Lake and Nemacolin Woodlands in Pennsylvania.

Read the full article here.

If you are thinking of buying or selling real estate in Garrett County or Deep Creek Lake, Maryland, call Jay Ferguson of Railey Realty for all of your real estate needs! 877-563-5350

Deep Creek Do It All specializes in cleaning services in Garrett County & @ Deep Creek Lake. Give them a call (301-501-0217) or visit the website – competitive rates and quality results from a locally owned & operated company!