The Chrome Hill Solar project is a proposed 5 MW community solar plant on about 44 acres off Rigdon Road in Jarrettsville. It is in front of the Maryland Public Service Commission as Case 9874. The site sits squarely in the Stirrup Run basin, a tributary to Deer Creek which begins near Stewartstown, PA.
Stirrup Run is designated by Maryland as Use III-P Natural Trout Waters. That is the cold-water designation meant to protect natural trout reproduction. As of this writing, I am the only person who has raised brook trout concerns in comments to the PSC. I am raising it because this basin holds self-sustaining wild brook trout.
Maryland’s DNR’s statewide brook trout surveys (2014–2018), which documented a 27% decline in brook trout occupancy statewide and approximately 50% loss in the Piedmont region (Carroll, Baltimore, and Harford counties), and identify Stirrup Run as one of the few remaining streams supporting a self‑sustaining native brook trout population.
My concern is thermal runoff. A solar panel in full sun can reach about 150-160 degrees on its surface. When a summer rain shower hits a 45 acre field of hot panels, that water warms and runs off the site and downstream. In a small stream like Stirrup Run, a pulse of warm water goes straight to the brook trout.
There is a lot of local resistance to this project on farmland and viewshed grounds, but the Commission has not been given any indication, that I am aware of, that harm could come to the brook trout.
If you fish Deer Creek or care about one of the few remaining wild brook trout streams we have in Harford County, please reach out to the Maryland Public Service Commission and reference Case 9874 Chrome Hill Solar, LLC and Stirrup Run. Ask them to consider the thermal impacts to self-sustaining brook trout in the Stirrup Run Watershed.
Stirrup Run is designated by Maryland as Use III-P Natural Trout Waters. That is the cold-water designation meant to protect natural trout reproduction. As of this writing, I am the only person who has raised brook trout concerns in comments to the PSC. I am raising it because this basin holds self-sustaining wild brook trout.
Maryland’s DNR’s statewide brook trout surveys (2014–2018), which documented a 27% decline in brook trout occupancy statewide and approximately 50% loss in the Piedmont region (Carroll, Baltimore, and Harford counties), and identify Stirrup Run as one of the few remaining streams supporting a self‑sustaining native brook trout population.
My concern is thermal runoff. A solar panel in full sun can reach about 150-160 degrees on its surface. When a summer rain shower hits a 45 acre field of hot panels, that water warms and runs off the site and downstream. In a small stream like Stirrup Run, a pulse of warm water goes straight to the brook trout.
There is a lot of local resistance to this project on farmland and viewshed grounds, but the Commission has not been given any indication, that I am aware of, that harm could come to the brook trout.
If you fish Deer Creek or care about one of the few remaining wild brook trout streams we have in Harford County, please reach out to the Maryland Public Service Commission and reference Case 9874 Chrome Hill Solar, LLC and Stirrup Run. Ask them to consider the thermal impacts to self-sustaining brook trout in the Stirrup Run Watershed.
