Feasibility Study

County Commissioner Robin Bartlett Frazier expressed concerns yesterday about a plan to discharge treated sewage from Francis Scott Key High School onto a neighboring dairy farm.Frazier said her objection is not to the scope of the project but to the proposed use of a consultant. She suggested that the county could save the taxpayers money by doing much of the work itself.J. Michael Evans, the county public works director, recommended that the commissioners hire David T. Duree, president of Advance Systems, to oversee the design and engineering of the project.

A Carroll County planning official again urged the state and the county last night to create a task force to take a long-range look at highway needs in the Route 26-Route 32 corridor in South Carroll."

Confused about the county's plans for the Route 140 corridor, some Finksburg residents are organizing a citizens group to get answers about potential development in the area.The effort follows reports that county officials might commission a feasibility study of industrial development opportunities from Westminster to Finksburg. Area residents want to make sure they have a voice in the process."What we're trying to do is get a group of Finksburg citizens together and just talk about what's being planned or not planned for the Finksburg area," said David O'Callaghan, one of the organizers.

Today: Bill Mott seldom sends a horse to Maryland, but his talented 5-year-old mare Feasibility Study is the likely favorite in the $75,000 Maryland Racing Writers' Handicap for fillies and mares. Her main threat in the 1 1/8 -mile race is the Maryland-bred Miss Slewpy, which Feasibility Study dispatched Jan. 4 at Aqueduct.Postponed last weekend because of freezing weather, the $75,000 1 1/8 -mile Native Dancer Handicap showcases top older horses Devil's Honor, Richie The Coach and Western Echo.

Two popular Maryland-breds scored dramatic victories yesterday in a pair of $75,000 stakes races at Laurel Park.C. Oliver Goldsmith's Miss Slewpy won the Maryland Racing Writers' Handicap after shaking off a determined early challenge by Mesabi Maiden, and Mary's Buckaroo won the Native Dancer Handicap after driving past front-runners Western Echo and Richie The Coach. Both races were 1 1/8 miles.Before nearly 6,000 fans in person and 5,000 more at the state's off-track betting sites, the odds-on Miss Slewpy prevailed for the fourth time in her past six races.

State officials say widening the 6 1/2 -mile stretch of Route 32 from Interstate 70 to Route 26 to four lanes is possible but, at a projected cost of $80 million, improbable.Carroll County envisions a widened Route 32 as its access to interstates, as a boon to economic development in South Carroll and as the cheapest way to ease traffic congestion in its fastest-growing area."From my perspective, this project is a critical component to the fiscal health of Carroll County," said Steven D. Powell, county budget director.

ALBANY, N.Y. - A few years back, when Hank Fischer of the Defenders of Wildlife was trying to persuade hostile Western ranchers to accept the reintroduction of gray wolves to Yellowstone National Park, he was sometimes met with a counterchallenge: Since Easterners are so interested in wolves, "why don't you introduce them to New York City or Washington, D.C.?"Washington may be a little too dangerous for wolves, Fischer jokes, and they are not likely to be in Central Park any time soon. But a nascent effort to return them to New York state - specifically, the Adirondacks - is gaining traction with the surprising and widely publicized success of the Yellowstone reintroduction program, now nearly 2 years old.Nine packs totaling 40 free-ranging wolves have become established in and around Yellowstone and are breeding so successfully that Mike Phillips, a National Park Service biologist who directs the program, says the endangered gray wolf is beginning "to flirt with recovery," well ahead of schedule, in his part of the country.

Though the reopening of Tipton Army Airfield as a civilian airport would more than double the number of landings and takeoffs there, few people at a public briefing last night raised concerns.That's because many of the 30 people attending the meeting at Meade Senior High School in Anne Arundel County were pilots interested in having another place to fly and park their airplanes."I'm worried about my airport closing," said Joe Duncan, 48, a Glen Burnie resident who parks his plane at Lee Airport in Edgewater.

The citizens group pushing to turn Columbia into a city has raised enough money to commission a University of Maryland feasibility study -- if county politics doesn't kill the study first.The Columbia Municipal League considers the $7,500 study -- a financial and legal analysis that would include a draft city charter -- crucial to deflecting critics who argue that making Columbia a city would increase costs and add a layer of government.League members plan to meet with UM officials today to negotiate the scope of the study.

An incomplete map accompanied an article Tuesday in the Maryland section on a feasibility study of a prototype 300-mph magnetic levitation train. These are the four alternative routes for a regional maglev system, a project that currently lacks federal support.

A Baltimore group is in serious negotiations with the city and the IndyCar Series about staging an annual street race beginning in 2011 near the Inner Harbor that state and city officials say could rival the Preakness in its economic impact and national exposure. Baltimore Racing Development, a limited liability company, is proposing five years of what it calls a "Baltimore Grand Prix" beginning in the late summer or early fall of 2011. BRD has been meeting with city and state officials - including representatives of Mayor Sheila Dixon - and with the Indy Racing League's IndyCar Series.

Julie Drabenstadt lives two minutes from the Savage library, but the branch is small and often crowded. Children's classes often fill up before Drabenstadt can get her 4-year-old daughter registered, and she frequently has to wait for materials to be sent from elsewhere. "It seems like a lot of the books I want have to come from the Central and Glenwood branches," said Drabenstadt, who often goes to the county's larger libraries. Elkridge residents have expressed similar complaints about their branch.

Long-stalled efforts to renovate and expand Baltimore's outdated courthouses began again this month after city officials asked the Maryland Stadium Authority to do a formal study of the project. The city and courts have set aside $700,000 for the feasibility study, which must be approved by two General Assembly committees before it can begin, said George Nilson, the city's solicitor. It would be the second study in five years. The first elaborated on previous reports and identified eight sites where a third courthouse to handle criminal cases could be built.

HCC offers Arabic, Mandarin classes Howard Community College will begin its second year of STARTALK, its free program for high school students (including incoming ninth-graders and newly graduated seniors) to learn Arabic or Mandarin Chinese. Classes, which will be taught by experienced native speakers, will teach communicative ability and cultural awareness. Students will receive eight college credits and will be prepared to start intermediate-level classes. The seven-week session of classes will be held from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday, June 23 through Aug. 7. There is a $50 registration fee, which can be waived for students with demonstrated financial need.

After months of community pressure to ease crowding in Towson-area elementary schools, the Baltimore County school board voted last night to recommend construction of a separate school that would open by the fall of 2010. The board's decision came just weeks after the panel's members ordered a study to determine all its options, including additions to schools in the area and construction of a new school. The building recommended last night would be designed to accommodate at least 400 students, most of whom would come from Rodgers Forge Elementary, and would be on the grounds of Ridge Ruxton School.

Parents at Ridge Ruxton School have filed two separate federal complaints opposing plans to build an addition at the special-education facility in Towson to ease crowding at elementary schools in the area. School board members learned of the actions at Tuesday night's meeting, where they voted to conduct a feasibility study of options -- including expansion of Ridge Ruxton -- to alleviate the overcrowding. The complaints -- the first step toward possibly filing a federal lawsuit -- come amid a budget-planning season that has been especially prickly for the school system.

State transportation officials have earmarked $1 million to study a potential extension of Washington's Metrorail to Laurel, Fort Meade and Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport, taking the first step toward possibly linking the Washington and Baltimore transit systems. Transportation Secretary Robert L. Flanagan said yesterday that growth between Baltimore and Washington, soon to be intensified by a defense job boom at Fort Meade, would eventually turn the two cities into one metropolis.

The push for joint civilian-military use of an airfield at Aberdeen Proving Ground is close to being cleared for takeoff. As a feasibility study nears completion, officials are exploring development options for the oft-derailed project, which the county bowed out of four years ago and which has drawn criticism from the community and some base officials. For nearly 20 years, the Army has considered the prospect of opening Phillips Army Airfield - its 10,000-foot runway is one of the longest on the East Coast - to civilian and commercial traffic.

The push for joint civilian-military use of an airfield at Aberdeen Proving Ground is close to being cleared for takeoff. As a feasibility study nears completion, officials are exploring development options for the oft-derailed project, which the county bowed out of four years ago and which has drawn criticism from the community and some base officials. For nearly 20 years, the Army has considered the prospect of opening Phillips Army Airfield - its 10,000-foot runway is one of the longest on the East Coast - to civilian and commercial traffic.

The old Naval Academy Dairy Farm in Gambrills, with its white picket fences and red-roofed buildings on gently rolling land that resembles the English Cotswolds, has emerged as one of the state's top two choices for a planned Maryland Horse Park, but few parties are clapping. In a significant step forward, the Maryland Stadium Authority site selection committee met Friday to evaluate the 857-acre farm in Anne Arundel County for a feasibility study for a major equestrian venue envisioned as Maryland's answer to Kentucky's state-supported horse park.