Washington – By Pentagon standards, it’s a relatively small deal.
But senior Defense Department officials see it as hugely important.
The department is spending $1.4 million to protect 163.5 acres of farmland in northeastern Maryland from new-home construction, preserving a scenic habitat so that tanks and Humvees can keep roaring around the Army’s off-road test course nearby.
By using the farmland as a buffer zone, the Army will not have to worry about urban encroachment disrupting training and testing that has gone on at the Army’s Churchville Test Area, a part of the Aberdeen Proving Ground, for 65 years.
The Army will celebrate the creation of the buffer zone at a ceremony Wednesday with its partners: the Harford County government, the Harford Land Trust and the Hopkins family, which has raised crops, cattle and horses on its farm since 1955.
Tim Hopkins, who grew up on the farm, said his family decided about two years ago to start subdividing the land so that parcels could be sold off for residential development. “Aberdeen approached us about that, and said they would prefer not to have 20 homes across from their tank-testing center,” he said.
The buffer-zone agreement with Army and local officials will provide the family with income to invest “and keep the farm pretty much as it is,” Hopkins said. The family could have made substantially more money by selling off home lots, “but we’re just as happy keeping it as a farm, too,” he said. Hopkins, his parents and a sister live on the farm.
The Army Compatible Use Buffer, as the program is known, is part of the Defense Department’s readiness and environmental protection initiative. For fiscal 2008, the Pentagon is seeking $30 million for the initiative, which also draws financial support from local and state governments and nonprofit groups interested in protecting habitats around military bases. The program is in its fourth year, and more than two dozen buffers have been completed.
One of the most successful partnerships has been at Fort Bragg, home of the 82nd Airborne Division, in North Carolina. The military and the Nature Conservancy negotiated the purchase of a conservation easement on a tree farm, ending the threat of commercial development and allowing the Army to continue combat training programs. Creating the buffer zone at Fort Bragg has led to the recovery of the North Carolina Sandhills population of the red-cockaded woodpecker, the first for that species.
In past decades, the armed forces have not always been seen as a steward of the environment, in part because of toxic wastes generated by installations and their weapons systems. But the military’s attitude has changed as the U.S. population increases and once-remote forts and bases have been surrounded by metropolitan areas. In recent years, urban sprawl has threatened Marine training near San Diego and Army training near Colorado Springs.
The Army is projected to add 30,000 troops and with base closures and realignments scheduled, the military is under pressure to maximize the use of its bases without alienating nearby communities. At the Pentagon, Paul Mayberry, deputy undersecretary of defense readiness, and Philip Grone, deputy undersecretary for installations and environment, are leading the effort to reach out to local communities.
“It is incumbent upon us as a department to be proactive and to really get out ahead of some of the incompatible growth and development around our installations,” Mayberry said.
With the Maryland buffer zone, the Army hopes to keep operating a test track that kicks up a lot of dust and makes a lot of noise. The Churchville Test Area has hills that provide steep natural grades and tight turns to stress engines, drivetrains and suspensions for Army vehicles, including Abrams tanks, Bradley Fighting Vehicles and Humvees.
Army officials were concerned that if residential development took place, training would be restricted to a smaller area inside the Churchville site. Tad Davis, deputy assistant secretary of the Army for environment, safety and occupational health, said that could “cause us not to be able to do the testing that we need to do as close to the combat conditions as we would like to shake out those vehicles and weapons systems.” (Begin optional trim) The conservation easement will protect Deer Creek, which separates the farm from the testing grounds and is part of a watershed that provides drinking water for nearby northeastern Maryland communities that are growing in population.
“That will be green space in this region that the community will be able to enjoy for many, many years to come,” Davis said.
