More delays for troubled Shore security project
A controversial plan to build a State Department security facility on Maryland's Eastern Shore is facing additional delays of weeks or months, federal government officials disclosed Thursday.
The proposed training center for diplomats on 2,000 acres of privately owned land in Ruthsburg has been under attack from local residents and environmentalists, who have questioned whether that is the best site for the $100 million-plus project.
In April, federal officials said they expected to release a draft Environmental Assessment of the project in "late spring."
However, in response to a request from The Baltimore Sun, the State Department and the General Services Administration announced Thursday that the environmental assessment won't be ready until late July, at the earliest.
Here's the statement:
The extensive work required to complete a draft Environmental Assessment (EA) on the Hunt Ray/Crismer Farms was estimated to be completed by the end of Spring 2010. Additional studies and analysis have extended the Environmental Assessment process for this proposed project. Completion of the draft EA now is planned for Summer 2010, no earlier than July 30th.
In March, the Environmental Projection Agency urged the State Department to abandon its environmental assessment and move immediately to preparing a more thorough environmental impact statement for the planned Foreign Affairs Security Training Center.
That process, more time-consuming and less stringent than the one the government is now conducting, would likely delay approval of the project by months, if not years. Officials of the State Department and GSA, the government's real-estate arm, in an effort to fast-track the project, have hoped to avoid formally involving the Environmental Protection Agency in the review.
When plans were announced late last year for the anti-terror training facility, complete with explosives pit, firing range, evasive driving tracks and a mock urban neighborhood, federal officials had expected to begin land acquisition by this spring.
The government has said that Queen Anne's County is the best location within a 150-mile radius of Washington for the campus-like center. But opponents have accused federal officials of failing to consider existing federal property for construction of the facility.
