GSA scraps proposed anti-terrorism training site on Maryland's Eastern Shore
The administration planned to invest $70 million in building one of the U.S. largest anti-terrorism training center near the town of Ruthsburg on Maryland’s East Shore; stiff opposition from local residents, environmentalists, and Republican in Congress convinced the General Services Administration to scrap the plan
Controversial plans to construct one of the U.S. largest and busiest anti-terrorism training facilities in a quiet corner of Maryland’s Eastern Shore are dead, leaving neighbors and environmentalists happy and members of Maryland’s congressional delegation, who initially supported building it, scrambling to explain why they’re okay with it crumbling, too.
The Washington Post’s Aaron Davis writes that letter out yesterday from General Services Administrator Martha Johnson confirms that federal officials have given up on the site.
Hundreds of residents in and around the town of Ruthsburg, about thirty miles east of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, had strongly opposed construction of the site. They said the planned explosions, racetrack, and traffic from thousands of trainees on their way to protect embassies and other State Department facilities would have fundamentally altered the character of the little town near Centreville. A group of residents had filed suit and claimed that the State Department and federal procurement officials had altered their selection criteria to make the tract of Ruthsburg’s farmland the government’s preferred site.
Republicans in Congress had also recently targeted the plan, which called for spending some $70 million in stimulus funding to buy the land and get the project started, as a waste of money.
