Environmental regulators and area residents who serve on the board overseeing cleanup of Fort Meade's Superfund site criticized Army brass in a meeting last night for failing to disclose crucial environmental documents before transferring military land to a housing developer.

Fort Meade has made no secret of its wish to proceed quickly with the Residential Communities Initiative, a $3 billion, 50-year program to privatize military housing nationwide. The developer, Rhode Island-based Picerne Real Estate Group, has taken control of managing the property, replacing the Army's Department of Public Works.

But in a rush to move the project forward, Army officials acknowledge, they didn't provide the Restoration Advisory Board with the documents - an environmental assessment and a finding of suitability for transferring the land - that are normally available for public review.

Since Fort Meade was placed on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Superfund list of hazardous waste cleanup sites in 1998, the advisory board has actively reviewed complex environmental records pertaining to ground-water contamination, landfill activity and solid waste.

Members of RAB - which includes representatives of the EPA, Maryland Department of the Environment and Anne Arundel County Health Department - asked months ago for the environmental assessment report that federal law requires. The assessment was completed in March, but the board never received it.

Similarly, the 40-page document indicating whether the land was suitable to be transferred was not shared with the board, despite a request for it during a recent public meeting.

The transfer document was signed at the end of April, and Picerne assumed management of the properties May 1.

RCI program manager George Barbee said Army regulations recommend sharing such documents with the public but don't require it.

"This was a business and entrepreneurial process that was unlike anything we had undertaken before. It was fast-paced," he said. "We made a decision to close and transfer the property as quickly as possible."

Barbee added that the assessment indicated that, despite lead-paint and asbestos contamination in the houses that are to be demolished and rebuilt, the land studies showed no significant problems.

That assurance wasn't enough for Robert Stroud, the EPA's remedial project manager who is assigned to Fort Meade. Stroud learned this week that Fort Meade was planning to build houses on land that his agency never studied.

"You say you want community involvement. You had a board begging to look at the documents and you didn't provide them," Stroud told Barbee.