If the bill was amended as Mr. Jacobsen proposed, it would stop developer Greenberg Gibbons Commercial from building the Village at Waugh Chapel South, a project with homes, restaurants, a movie theater and a Wegmans grocery store, over a 13-year-old fly ash landfill.

What Mr. Jacobsen didn't tell the committee was that he is the executive director and registered lobbyist for the Mid-Atlantic Retail Food Industry Joint Labor Management Fund, or JLM, a group that represents grocery store unions and their management.

Nor did he tell the committee that it would stop the opening of a Wegmans grocery store, a shop that would compete with other chains in the area, ones that Mr. Jacobsen is paid by the JLM to represent.

Mr. Jacobsen did not give any indication that the testimony he provided would benefit his employer.

According to state public ethics law, it is illegal for lobbyists to engage in fraudulent conduct, make false statements while lobbying or knowingly conceal from an official the identity of their employer.

"That would concern me, if a registered lobbyist doesn't act in accordance with ethic rules," said Greg Teneyck, a spokesman for Safeway supermarkets, one of the companies Mr. Jacobsen represents.

Mr. Jacobsen said his testimony wasn't given on behalf of the JLM; it was from a genuinely concerned resident.

"All I know was that I talked as a citizen there. I have my truthful, personal account of what was going on," he said.

But Mr. Jacobsen said he is a man of many different facets, all of which are against big-box type developments.

"I do it under different umbrellas, different avenues, at different times I talk for different groups. I've done that the whole time I've been in the Crofton area. My story has never changed," he said.

Bob Hahn, executive director of the State Ethics Commission, said that ethics violations are evaluated by the specifics of each case and he could not determine if what Mr. Jacobsen did was illegal without further review.

However, he said violations can require a lobbyist to file additional reports, result in fines and possibly the suspension of a lobbyist's registration.

Others think Mr. Jacobsen should have been more transparent with his intentions and financial incentives.

"It's a charade," said Brian J. Gibbons, president and CEO of Greenberg Gibbons, the company that is planning the 88-acre mix of homes, restaurants, shops, movie theater and the non-union Wegmans that Mr. Jacobsen and the JLM oppose.

Mr. Gibbon's said his reasons for building the project are apparent, and the basis for Mr. Jacobsen's opposition should be, too.

Ralph Uttaro, a vice president at Rochester, N.Y.-based Wegmans, said pro-union forces have challenged his company's plans to open a store in Gambrills.

"There have been veiled or not-so-veiled threats that if Wegmans doesn't unionize their stores, they are going to fight that one," he said.

Many hats

As Mr. Jacobsen prepared to deliver his testimony on Feb. 13, he tucked his state-issued lobbyist badge into his sweater, transforming himself into a concerned small businessman.

"I'm Torrey Jacobsen. I have a small business next to the Gambrills site," he said, introducing himself to the House Environmental Committee.

Except for his name, it wasn't true. At the end of December, Mr. Jacobsen's "small business," an Allstate insurance office he keeps in addition to his JLM work, moved out if its location in Gambrills.

He was testifying on a bill that would put restrictions on how fly ash, a byproduct created in coal-fueled power plants, is deposited.

For 12 years it was dumped into a surface mine in Gambrills, contaminating groundwater with heavy metals, some carcinogenic.

His parents died of lung cancer. He, a non-smoker, didn't want to become sick because of fly ash floating through the air and he worried that he could suffer a similar fate.

He urged delegates to amend the bill.

In addition to adding protections to groundwater as the legislation was originally written, Mr. Jacobsen wanted it to prohibit construction over fly ash landfills. Building would create more environmental havoc and pose a health risk, he said.

"We feel that this bill should be amended at least at the Gambrills site so that no development occurs," he said.

If the bill was amended as Mr. Jacobsen proposed, the Wegmans JLM has opposed couldn't be built.

Mr. Jacobsen often has worn two hats.

For five years he served as president of the Greater Crofton Council, a very public post he left in January for a position as the group's Planning and Zoning Committee chairman.

But since late June, he has been executive director of the JLM, a job he referred to as the "Wal-Mart killer," a position that requires him to be a thorn in the side, if not a roadblock, to big-box, non-union grocery stores.

But these two roles overlap in their objectives.

The GCC opposed a Wal-Mart that was planned for Crofton. While not in the front lines of the Crofton Wal-Mart battle, JLM also has fought against the Arkansas-based retailer elsewhere.

But one of the groups JLM represents, the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 27, a union that represents employees at several Crofton-area grocery stores, protested at meetings related to the proposed Wal-Mart before Mr. Jacobsen was hired by the JLM.

The GCC also has taken a stand against the Village at Waugh Chapel South in Gambrills, the development with a Wegmans. The grocery store is popular and will lure shoppers from the entire region, congesting an already busy Route 3, Mr. Jacobsen said at a GCC meeting in May.

Mr. Jacobsen also has said that the JLM was opposing every proposed Wegmans in the state, including the one planned for Gambrills.

Development solution?

While Mr. Jacobsen was testifying against amending the fly ash bill, he also was advocating against what many say is the best solution to fly ash contamination in Gambrills - development.

If properly constructed, the acres of buildings, parking lots and sidewalks - all impervious surfaces - would serve as a shield, keeping water out of the fly ash chambers beneath the ground.

Without the barrier, rain and runoff could seep into the fly ash and drip into the soil like water through coffee grounds, adding to the contamination problem, said Jay Sakai, director of water management with Maryland Department of the Environment.

"It would stabilize the site from future problems," he said.

Building over fly can be a safe way of controlling environmental hazards, officials said.

Mr. Gibbons said his company is working closely with MDE, making sure that the new development doesn't cause any harm.

"The best thing you can do to stop contamination at the site is to develop it. It will have storm drainage systems. You will have a permanent impermeable cap. In terms of environmental impact, it's a net positive," he said.

Others aren't so sure that development is the remedy to fly ash contamination.

"Installation of utilities would disturb the cap," Madonna Brennan, co-chairman of Crofton First, a development watchdog group said at a recent forum about fly ash.

Developers say every development will have some form of opposition, it is the nature of the industry.

But they say they would prefer that people's true motives were more apparent so that legitimate problems can be addressed.

"I'm not saying there aren't legitimate people with legitimate concerns, but we are addressing them with the county or the state," Mr. Gibbons said.

But he said he doesn't want fly ash turned into a red herring against construction.

"The people who are trying to raise up the issue as it is related to development is Jacobsen," Mr. Gibbons said.