FORT HOOD - A plan designed to preserve training areas on the world’s largest U.S. Army post is being viewed with consternation by one local group that describes its mission as land preservation.

Our Land Our Lives President Bob Maharg said the plan, known as the Army Compatible Use Buffer, or ACUB, that is being proposed to landowners fails to address concerns the organization has had with Fort Hood for decades.

“We are basically in the dark,” Maharg said.

The problem, Maharg explained, is that the post and those associated with ACUB are not communicating with the landowners.

The property encompasses areas in excess of 91,000 acres near Fort Hood along the post’s northern fringes in southern Gatesville and the post’s southern limit adjacent to the Killeen/Fort Hood Municipal Airport.

Fort Hood garrison commander Col. Bill Hill, who previously met with Maharg to discuss the plan, said the post has to maintain its training areas to ensure military readiness, but it also wants to be a good neighbor.

The focus of the ACUB program is to work with landowners to maintain open range and farmland into the future, and reduce the possibility of residential and commercial development.

Title 10, Section 2684a of the United States Code gives the Department of Defense the authority to partner with non-federal governments or private organizations to create buffers around installations.

The Army implements this authority through the ACUB program, which is managed jointly by the offices of the assistant chief of staff for installation management and the director of training.

In an open letter to Fort Hood officials dated Nov. 20, 2007, Maharg said that the post was not only not being a good neighbor, but failed to comply with Pentagon suggestions to work with affected landowners. That had only been done by Maj. Gen. James Simmons, the former deputy commander at III Corps.

“We support the Army and Fort Hood, and we have worked for three years to get an acceptable program for a buffer,” Maharg said.

However, Maharg said landowners still need to see something tangible from the Army and American Farmland Trust, the entity chosen to contact these landowners on behalf of Fort Hood.

Blair Fitsimmons, who represents American Farmland Trust, said from her San Antonio office Thursday, that it is too soon for landowners to expect to see anything tangible from her office or Fort Hood.

“We’ve just completed the partnership agreement and the next step is to open an office in Gatesville and have a staff person there on the ground that can work with the landowners,” she said. “We want to be the face of the program.”

American Farmland Trust is the only national non-profit organization whose mission is to conserve agricultural lands, and has been active in Texas since 1999. According to its Web site, the trust was “founded in 1980 by a group of farmers and conservationists concerned about the rapid loss of the nation’s farmland to development.” Its 2007 report indicates revenue from private, corporate and government sources.Under the terms of the program, interested landowners will voluntarily negotiate the sale of their development rights while retaining all other rights of ownership.

American Farmland Trust’s role is to work with interested landowners and their attorneys to craft agreements, typically known as agricultural conservation easements.

Fitsimmons said once the right person is brought into the fold, American Farmland Trust will begin conducting outreach seminars and provide information brochures to interested landowners.

In the meantime, the Army is moving right along and has gone to local governments looking for support, which isvital to the success of the program.

Maharg feels the Army is making an end run around landowners by doing this.

In fact, III Corp Commander Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno sent a letter to Coryell County Judge John Firth in May to express his desire to see the plan succeed, and indicated in his letter that many of the concerns expressed by Maharg and his organization had been addressed.

Maharg responded to Odierno’s letter and referred to the content as a “blatant misstatment of facts.”

“Our Land Our Lives and the community have opposed and continue to oppose conservation easements as the vehicle of choice for (the) Fort Hood ACUB,” Maharg said in his letter to Odierno.

He didn’t specific an alternative.Maharg ended his letter by asking that he and his vice president, Don Russell, meet with Odierno to resolve the matter.

So far, no meeting is scheduled.

In the meantime, Fitsimmons said she is committed to seeing that the landowners involved are educated about the benefits of the ACUB program.

“I know that everyone wants the information now and as soon as we get that person on the ground we can start providing that outreach,” she said.

To date, American Farmland Trust has negotiated similar ACUB agreements with property owners at Fort Sill, Okla., where the Army conducts artillery training.