Federal Training Facility Brews Queen Anne's Brouhaha

WASHINGTON - What started as an effort to create jobs in Queen Anne's County and increase national security has devolved into months of finger pointing, heated Facebook posts, dozens of furious letters, boycotts and a lot of extremely unhappy people.

Community tension has been high since November, when Hunt Ray Farm in Ruthsburg was announced as the preferred site for the State Department's proposed 2,000-acre Foreign Affairs Security Training Center.

The FASTC is a consolidation of 19 separate diplomatic security training facilities and it's expected to bring in 400-some, long-term jobs in maintenance, emergency medical services and administration, among others.

Some community members view the facility as a tremendous boost to the economy, while others see it as a detriment to the small, farm town society.

"They're talking about putting a bomb 60 feet from my backdoor," said Sherry Adam, whose home backs up to the proposed site. "This is God's county, this is one of the most beautiful areas, and to tear it up like that...it's just awful, these are my friends, these are my neighbors...it's going to be a terrible change."

The facility would offer both hard- and soft-skills training. Hard skills include weapons and explosive storage, driving tracks and indoor and outdoor firing and explosive ranges. Soft skills include simulation labs, administrative offices and classroom teaching.

Residents are hurrying to speak out by Feb. 19, when the public comment period of the National Environmental Policy Act process ends. NEPA is a law requiring government agencies to consider the environmental and cultural impacts of proposed projects before any plans go into action.

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