Power Line Inspectors Ask Court For Protection From Threatening Property Owners

By William J. Ford, Maryland Matters

August 20, 2025

The company surveying a potential route for the controversial Maryland Piedmont Reliability Project power line is asking a court to provide federal marshals for protection as they try to do their jobs.

In a petition filed Friday with U.S. District Court in Maryland, PSEG Renewable Transmission said that many of the landowners along the potential route of a high-power that would cut across Baltimore, Carroll and Frederick counties been cooperative. But it cites six incidents where property owners “have refused access, threatened armed violence, and engaged in intimidation tactics.”

Local police have indicated publicly that they will not get involved in civil complaints around the power line, leaving workers defenseless, the company said, arguing that the court should assign U.S. marshals to accompany workers in the field to protect them when needed.

In addition to threats of violence in the field, the company said it is “concerned about the safety of its land agents and surveyors given the social media atmosphere in which many individuals are openly calling for violence against the Company’s surveyors and land agents, as well as local law enforcement officials’ public statements of non-involvement,” the petition said.

A company spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the filing Tuesday. But a member of Stop MPRP, the grassroots group of landowners and others who have been fighting the power line for the past year, called the petition little more than a “scare tactic” by a “private, multibillion-dollar company.”

“We don’t believe violence is ever an answer or even threats of violence,” said Betsy McFarland, who owns 3 acres of land in Frederick County with her husband. “But regardless of that, we understand why people are so upset.

“We’re all donating our time to this cause because we care about our community,” McFarland said. “For this private, multibillion-dollar company to be able to come in and threaten people and take their land is not fair. We want to see the process play out.”

Federal judge grants Piedmont power line company access to land for surveys

McFarland noted that the Maryland Public Service Commission has not granted a key certificate that would allow construction on the power line to move forward.

But PSEG argues that PSC approval cannot come until a route can be mapped. It said it was selected by the regional electric grid operator, PJM Interconnection, and given a deadline of June 1, 2027, to place the 67-mile power transmission line in service — or risk blackouts or other woes due to increasing strain on the electric grid.

The MPRP line is planned to deliver power generated by a plant in southern Pennsylvania, carrying it from northern Baltimore County to southern Frederick County. PJM has said it needs the additional capacity to keep pace with rising demand for electricity at a time when aging power plants in Maryland are set to be retired, and new generation capacity is lagging.

Critics say the project not only presents a threat to private property along the route, but that it would destroy the rural nature of the region, interfere with family farms, harm forests and streams, and endanger a longtime youth camp.

Friday’s filing is the latest in a court case that began in May, when PSEG sued more than 100 landowners in the power line corridor who it said were refusing surveyors access to their property for the project.

U.S. District Judge Adam Abelson sided with the company in June, ruling that surveyors had a right to enter a property and “remain … to the extent reasonably necessary to make surveys, run lines or levels, or obtain information relating to the acquisition and future use of the properties in connection with the Maryland Piedmont Reliability Project.” Abelson said the company would first have to provide at least 24 hours of notice of its visits by “taping a notice on the front door.”

Opponents appealed Abelson’s ruling, but the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has not taken the case up yet. In the meantime, PSEG filed suit againts more property owners — a company spokesman said at the time that a lawsuit against a third group of property owners was expected — and began surveying properties in the first group.

The company said most landowners have been cooperative. But in addition to the social media threats, the petition cited six incidents when property owners yelled things to surveyors such as, “Do not come on my property, I have a gun, and I will shoot you,” and “get the [expletive] off my property.” Others threatened to sic dogs on the workers or stopped inches from hitting them with an ATV, the petition said.

The company asked the court to assign U.S. marshals to protect workers when they are threatened, and to set up an expedited process for requesting protection. That petition was filed Friday; Abelson on Monday approved an expedited hearing schedule, giving the property owners until Wednesday to file a response, and the company until Friday to reply.

McFarland said she was not named in any of the lawsuits to date, but said that could change in the near future.

“We’re probably going to get named in a future lawsuit because we’re not letting them on our property either, unless the court requires it,” she said. “I’m going to politely ask them to leave if they try.”