[CPEO-MEF] Munitions Site Could Still Be Developed

[CPEO Moderator <cpeo@cpeo.org>]

Maryland
THE WASHINGTON POST
Munitions Site Could Still Be Developed
By Eugene L. Meyer
Thursday, December 18, 2003; Page SM01

After three years of legal wrangling, a housing subdivision proposed for
a tract of farmland near Oakville in St. Mary's County, on soil that
some fear might be contaminated by buried munitions, may be built after
all. Then again, it may not.

In a 38-page opinion, the Maryland Court of Special Appeals ruled that
the county's Board of Appeals erred in deciding against the subdivision
without stating specific facts to back up its opinion. The appellate
court sent the case back to the board for further proceedings.

Without finally resolving the fate of the project, the ruling leaves the
door open to Virginia developer Robert S. Gollahon's proposal to build
homes on five 15-acre lots in the so-called McIntosh Subdivision Section
2, and perhaps to residential development on the rest of the 793-acre
tract.

"I think it's all going to work out to the property owner's and the
county's satisfaction," predicted Board of County Commissioners
President Thomas H. McKay (R-At Large).

The land in question is 12 miles north of Lexington Park, on the west
side of Route 235 between Friendship School Road and McIntosh Road.
Fifty years ago, the partially wooded site was used for the manufacture
and testing of munitions for the Navy. Workers sometimes buried
detonators and similar items in the woods around the factory, which
stopped operating in 1956.

This article can be viewed at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6937-2003Dec17.html

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