A controversial plan to build a State Department security facility on Maryland's Eastern Shore is facing further delays of weeks or months, federal government officials disclosed Thursday.
The proposed anti-terrorism training center for diplomats, where an explosives pit, firing range, tracks to practice evasive drivingand mock urban neighborhood would be built on 2,000 acres of privately owned land in Ruthsburg, has been under attack by area residents and environmentalists, who have questioned whether it is the best site for the more than $100 million project.
In April, federal officials said they expected to release a draft environmental assessment by "late spring," blaming weather and other factors for the initial delay.
Now, in response to a query from The Baltimore Sun, the State Department and the General Services Administration say the environmental review won't be finished until at least late July.
Gina Blyther Gilliam, a GSA spokeswoman, said "additional studies and analysis" had prolonged the process. Her statement said the draft environmental assessment is now planned for completion this summer, but "no earlier than July 30th."
In March, the Environmental Protection Agency urged federal planners to abandon their current assessment and move immediately to a more thorough environmental impact study of the proposed Foreign Affairs Security Training Center.
That process, far more time-consuming and stringent than the one the government is now conducting, would likely create further delays of months, if not years.
Officials of the State Department and the GSA, the government's real estate arm, initially hoped to fast-track the project, and the current environmental review avoids formally involving the EPA.
When plans for the facility were announced late last year, federal officials said privately that they expected to begin acquiring land by this spring or early summer.
The government has described rural Queen Anne's County as the best location within a 150-mile radius of Washington for the center. But opponents say federal officials failed to consider existing federal property for construction of the facility.
Last month, a local environmental group went to federal court in a new effort to slow or block the project. It demanded the release of internal government documents in advance of another public comment period that will follow completion of the draft environmental assessment.
Federal officials are "hurrying ahead with their abbreviated review," the Queen Anne's Conservation Association said in its May 19 filing. A spokesman for the group protested Washington's "rush to a pre-determined judgment" on a project financed with $70 million in stimulus money "that is not close to shovel-ready."