Jarrettsville, MD

Chrome Hill Solar Facility

A 5-megawatt industrial solar facility is proposed for 44 acres of prime farmland at 1121 Rigdon Road in Jarrettsville. The Maryland Public Service Commission (Case No. 9874) docket remains open. The applicant is expected to attempt to cure the deficiencies in its application, and continued public pressure will shape what happens next.

UPDATE (June 2026): The Maryland Power Plant Research Program (PPRP) and the Public Utility Law Judge have determined that the applicant's submission is DEFICIENT. The application cannot move forward as filed. This is a direct result of community pressure, and the fight is not over.

Harford County Unanimous Letter of Opposition

As seen on CBS News Baltimore

As seen on ABC News Baltimore

Here's how you can help: keep the pressure on

The deficiency ruling proves the record matters. Every comment, email, and letter filed before the applicant refiles makes this application harder to approve.

Quickest action — 2 minutes

Sign the community petition

Add your name to the petition against the Chrome Hill Solar facility. The fastest way to show your opposition.

Sign on Change.org →

Step 1 — Highest impact

File a public comment with the PSC

Goes directly into the case docket Judge Grace will read. Takes about 5 minutes.

How to file →

Step 2 — Pressure

Email County and State officials

A constituent email to your delegate or council member is the second most effective lever.

Sample email + contacts →

 New

Step 3 — Escalate

Write to Governor Moore

The Governor signed the law that took away our county's say. His office counts every message.

Letter + how to send →

Step 1

File a public comment with the Maryland PSC

The Public Service Commission accepts written comment from any member of the public until the record closes. The application has been ruled deficient, and comments filed now become part of the record the judge will weigh if the applicant attempts to cure its application. Comments are filed in the case docket and reviewed by the assigned judge (PULJ Jennifer J. Grace) and by Commission staff.

One comment per adult — not one per household.

Every individual voice on the docket carries weight. If two or three adults live in your home, please each file your own. The more unique submissions from real people, the harder this application is to dismiss.

How to file online

  1. Go to psc.maryland.gov/online-services/file-a-public-comment.
  2. Click the yellow "File a Comment" button.
  3. Register to submit public comments, or sign in if you already have an account.
  4. Select case number 9874 (important!).
  5. Upload your message in PDF format — use the editable comment below and the Download as PDF button.
  6. Submit.

You will receive an email confirmation. Save it — that is your filing receipt.

Need help filing? We've got you.

If you're not sure how to do this, we can walk you through it. Email and we will get back to you shortly.

Sample public comment — edit it right here

Click anywhere in the box below to edit. Replace the bracketed prompts with your own words, then copy or download as PDF.

To the Maryland Public Service Commission — re: Case No. 9874, Chrome Hill Solar, LLC.

I am a resident of Harford County, Maryland, and I respectfully oppose the application filed by Chrome Hill Solar, LLC to build a 5-megawatt industrial solar facility on approximately 44 acres of farmland at 1121 Rigdon Road in Jarrettsville.

[About me — share who you are in your own words: how long you have lived in the area, what brought you here, where your home sits in relation to the proposed site, and what your home and neighborhood mean to you.]

[How this project will affect me, my family, and my property — speak from your own experience. For example: the view from your home, the rural quiet you moved here for, your well water or the stream that runs near your land, your property value, the safety of Rigdon Road during construction and over the 40-year life of the facility, glare or noise, the experience your children or grandchildren will have growing up here, or anything else this project would change about your daily life.]

[How this project will affect our community — describe what makes Jarrettsville and northern Harford County worth preserving: the working farms, the open space, the rural character, the wildlife and streams, the sense of place and the neighbors who have known each other for generations. Explain why turning productive farmland into permanent industrial infrastructure is the wrong fit for this corner of the County.]

This is not opposition to clean energy. It is opposition to building this particular facility, at this particular location, in a way that the residents who live here did not ask for and that our County's comprehensive plan (HarfordNEXT) does not support.

I respectfully ask the Commission to deny this application for the sake of our families, our community, our county, and our state.

Respectfully,
[Your name]
[Street address, town, ZIP]
[Email]

Step 2

Email your County and State officials

Send a personal email to your representatives. Personal emails — written individually, not BCC'd — get answered. Form letters get filed away.

Sample email — copy, fill in the brackets, send

Subject: Constituent concern — Chrome Hill Solar (PSC Case No. 9874)

Dear [Council Member / Delegate / Senator Last Name],

I am writing as your constituent and a resident of Harford County, MD to make sure you hear directly from me how strongly I oppose the Chrome Hill Solar application — Maryland PSC Case No. 9874 — which proposes to convert approximately 44 acres of farmland at 1121 Rigdon Road in Jarrettsville into a 5-megawatt industrial solar facility.

[One short paragraph in your own words: how long you have lived in the area, what you value about Harford County's rural character, and how this project would affect you, your family, your view, your road, your community, your property value, or your access to local farmland.]

What troubles me most is not just this single project. It is that a project like this can move forward at all without Harford County having any meaningful authority over its own zoning. Under recent state legislation — including the 2023 PACE Act, the 2025 Renewable Energy Certainty Act, and PUA § 7-218(h) — Maryland has stripped local governments of the ability to decide where industrial solar facilities belong in our agricultural districts. An out-of-state developer can now convert our prime farmland to permanent industrial use over the objections of the community and inconsistent with HarfordNEXT, our County's own comprehensive plan — and Harford County is almost powerless to stop it.

I am one of many constituents writing you about this. Residents of Jarrettsville and northern Harford County are paying attention, we are organizing, and we are not going to be quiet. I am asking the elected officials who represent us — at the county level and at the state level — to:

  • Speak publicly and forcefully against this project, on the record and on whatever platform you have, so that the Public Service Commission and the State of Maryland hear that the people of Harford County are not in favor of it;
  • Stand with Harford County in demanding that meaningful local zoning authority over agricultural and rural land be restored, so that decisions about where industrial facilities belong are made by the people who live with the consequences.

Thank you for your time and for representing Harford County.

Respectfully,
[Your name]
[Street address, town, ZIP]
[Email] · [Phone]

Tip: send each official their own email. Do not BCC. Personal one-to-one emails are read; mass mail is filtered.

Harford County

County leadership and your council member.

Maryland State Legislators

All are on the formal PSC service list for this case. Email the senator(s) and delegate(s) for your district.

Senate

House of Delegates

Step 3

Write to Governor Moore

Governor Moore signed the Renewable Energy Certainty Act of 2025, the law that stripped Harford County of zoning authority over projects like Chrome Hill Solar. His office logs and tallies every constituent message. A high volume of messages on a single issue gets noticed, and it builds the record that this policy is costing him rural Maryland.

How to send it online

  1. Go to the Governor's contact form: Contact the Governor (md.accessgov.com).
  2. Select "Legislation" as the Message Topic.
  3. Copy the letter below into the message field. The form limits messages to 2,000 characters; the letter fits with room to spare.
  4. Fill in your name, address, and email. Use your real Harford County address; constituent messages from affected districts carry the most weight. The form signs the message for you, so no signature is needed in the letter itself.
  5. Submit.

IMPORTANT: After submission, you will receive confirmation on screen. Download the PDF of your submission and save this for our records.

The letter

Copy it, then paste it into the message field of the Governor's contact form.

Governor Moore,

In days, more than 1,800 residents of Jarrettsville and the farming communities of northern Harford County have signed a petition (https://c.org/qCqtzHMGKL) opposing the conversion of ag-zoned land into industrial solar facilities. This is not isolated opposition. IT IS A REFERENDUM.

Your administration championed the Renewable Energy Certainty Act of 2025, stripping counties of meaningful zoning authority over solar siting. You promised it would accelerate Maryland's clean energy future. Instead, it hands our most finite strategic resource, our farmland, to out-of-state developers while telling the families beside these projects that their voices no longer matter.

In my community, that developer is carrying a federal Clean Water Act settlement with the U.S. EPA, a judicial finding of gross negligence in Massachusetts, and a likely sale to another out-of-state firm, casting doubt on who will operate the facility. This is the type of operator YOUR LEGISLATION invites onto thousands of acres of Harford County farmland, over the documented objection of the community and members of the Harford County Council.

We demand:
1. A public response addressing the collapse of community-input safeguards in the Certainty Act.
2. Repeal, or at minimum comprehensive amendment, of the provisions preempting county siting authority over community and utility-scale solar.
3. A moratorium on PSC approval of solar applications on prime agricultural land until the General Assembly revisits this law in the 2027 session.

You won 44% of Harford County in 2022 by speaking to working families and rural Maryland. 1,800 of those families have now told you, in writing, that this policy is a betrayal of that constituency. We are organized. We are documented. And we are watching, as voters.

We expect your timely response.