PITTSBURGH—The government is close to reaching a deal with several western Pennsylvania landowners who have property on the site where a Flight 93 National Memorial is to be built, possibly eliminating the need for the National Park Service to seize the land.
Several landowners said Friday that negotiations with the National Park Service in the past week have been more productive than the years of talks since Flight 93 plunged into a western Pennsylvania field in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
The park service said last week that if a deal was not reached by Friday it would resort to the legal mechanism of eminent domain, which allows the government to forcibly take land.
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has said the government has a “moral obligation” to complete the $58 million, 2,200-acre memorial by Sept. 11, 2011, the 10-year anniversary of the terrorist attacks.
Flight 93 was en route from Newark, N.J., to San Francisco when it crashed. Investigators believe the hijackers’ plan was to crash into the U.S. Capitol or another Washington target. The 40 passengers and crew killed in the crash have been recognized as heroes for preventing the attack.
Jason Dahl of Ken Caryl Ranch, Colo., was a co-pilot.
Dan Wenk, the acting director of the National Park Service, said in a statement Friday that the families and government had made “remarkable progress” during the past week.
“I am extremely encouraged by how the negotiations have gone and I appreciate the spirit of these negotiations,” Wenk said. He said the park service and the families would continue talks through the weekend.
At least three property owners said Friday that though no deals have been finalized, they believe many of the outstanding issues can be resolved within days, paving the way for construction to begin.
“It is looking positive,” said Irving Portnoy, an attorney representing Anthony Kordell, whose family runs a scrap business on more than 100 acres of property needed for the memorial.
But Portnoy said there are several complicated issues that remain unresolved, including where the Kordells will move their metal and plastic recycling operation, the cost of relocation and the expense of stopping operations during a move.
Still, “it’s more realistic than it was a week ago” that a deal can be reached by Monday—the day the government said it would file the paperwork needed to move ahead with eminent domain, Portnoy said.
Christine Williams, whose family owns land with a log cabin they had planned to retire to, said she is just waiting to sign the paperwork to hand over her land and is pleased with the deal being worked out.
While Williams declined to say how much money she would receive for the five or so acres her family owns, she said the price does take into account the need to find another location.
Larry Hoover owns a house, cottage and pavilion on 5.7 acres of “core property”—meaning it is in the heart of where the plane crashed. Hoover said his son had lived in that house until Sept. 11, when damage caused by the crash forced him to abandon the land.
In the past week, Hoover said, negotiations have been more fruitful than they have been since the crash. He said he believes his family is within days of reaching a deal.
