SOMERSET, Pa. -- The U.S. government will not use eminent domain to seize people's land for a permanent Flight 93 memorial and instead will renew negotiations with landowners near the terrorist crash site in Somerset County.
"The landowners will be treated fairly," Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said Friday. "There will be fair compensation provided. That's fair compensation based on fair market value."
U.S. Gov't Backs Off Plan To Seize Flight 93 Memorial LandUntil Friday, the National Park Service had planned to seize the remaining land that's needed for a $58 million, 2,200-acre memorial and national park at the crash site -- an extremely rural area 60 miles southeast of Pittsburgh.
Slideshow: Pictures Of The Flight 93 Temporary MemorialU.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pa., accompanied Salazar Friday as they met with families of victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, fatal hijacking and landowners in Shanksville.
The meeting also focused on what still needs to be done for the memorial to be completed by 2011, in time for the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks.
Specter said the "landowners have been good neighbors and there have been some miscommunications. Here and now, we have to recognize the contributions of the landowners."
Salazar told the park service to negotiate with landowners for one more week. Eminent domain will be used as a last resort if no agreement can be reached.
"They, too, were the victims of 9/11, in terms of what happened," Salazar said of the seven property owners, who control about 500 acres. "I do believe we will find a good way and a positive way to move forward."
Two owners account for a majority of the acreage that the park service had hoped to condemn. Svonavec Inc. owns 275 acres -- including the place of impact where the plane hit the ground -- while a family that operates a scrap yard has about 150.
Parks service officials have said they needed to take the land because negotiations with landowners weren't successful, but landowners said those negotiations never took place.
"Every time we've talked to someone, nothing's happened," said Christine Williams, who owns about 6 acres at the site with her husband. "We have had three appraisals. We've never seen them."
"They haven't been informed exactly what was going on -- the procedures which were being followed," said Specter, who chalked it up to miscommunication.
Williams said she believes the announcement will help the process move faster, but it doesn't make giving up the land any easier.
"This was to be a property that we retired to," she said. "We didn't want to leave, and we still don't want to leave."
Current plans for the memorial include a walkway and a wall which would follow the plane's flight path to the crash site. Visitors would also be able to, for the first time, view the crash site from just a few feet away.
United Airlines Flight 93 was traveling from Newark, N.J., to San Francisco when hijackers took control and diverted it, likely hoping to crash into the White House or Capitol. The official
9/11 Commission report said the hijackers took the plane down when passengers tried to gain control of the cockpit.
Web Sites: - Flight 93 National Memorial Plans
- Donate To Help Build It
Previous WTAE Stories: - May 29, 2009: Land Acquired For Flight 93 Memorial Near Shanksville
- May 7, 2009: Government To Condemn Land For Flight 93 Memorial
- April 7, 2009: Deal Reached For Flight 93 Land
- March 11, 2009: Funding Announced For Flight 93 National Memorial
- February 20, 2009: Flight 93 Memorial Promised By 9/11/11
- November 1, 2008: Park Service Forms Group To Promote Flight 93 Site
- July 4, 2008: Flight 93 Memorial Visited On July Fourth
- May 3, 2008: 9-11 Memorial Draws More Protest
- February 2, 2008: Flight 93 Memorial Angers Some
- September 10, 2007: Somerset Gets Sept. 11 Exhibit On 6-Year Anniversary Of Attacks
Copyright 2009 by ThePittsburghChannel. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
