ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) - A bill to greatly expand the number of state-owned acres strictly protected as wildlands is heading for a hearing in Annapolis.
But the bill slated for a Senate committee hearing Tuesday afternoon is missing a parcel in far western Maryland that generated controversy when the O'Malley administration proposed it for wildlands protection in September.
The nearly 4,000-acre Youghiogheny River Corridor in Garrett County would have been among the largest of 10 new state wildlands.
It was dropped after critics complained that the designation would prohibit development of a proposed Eastern Continental Divide hiking-and-biking trail. The trail would be a loop off of the Great Allegheny Passage between Pittsburgh and Cumberland.
The bill as now written would increase the wildlands inventory by about 22,000 acres, or nearly 50 percent.
