Deadline set on Pa. memorial land deals

Los Angeles Times

The federal government on Friday set a deadline for Pennsylvania landowners who have refused to give up their property so that a memorial to United Flight 93 can be built.

Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar told landowners they have one week to reach sale agreements with the National Park Service before the agency exercises eminent domain to acquire the 500 remaining acres of land it needs for the memorial, at the site where the hijacked plane crashed Sept. 11, 2001.

On Friday, a delegation that included Salazar and Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pa., met with the property owners near Shanksville, a tiny town surrounded by woods and wetlands about 60 miles southeast of Pittsburgh.

The park service, an agency of the Interior Department, has reached agreements to purchase nearly 1,000 acres from other landowners in the area but has failed to persuade the six families that own the rest of the land to sell.