A NASA plan to sell 105 acres of forestland in Greenbelt is being criticized by environmental groups, who want to see the land preserved.

Known as Area 400, the land near the Goddard Space Flight Center at 8800 Greenbelt Rd. is mostly undeveloped except for 11 small buildings from the 1960s used to develop and test cryogenics that will be demolished.

As part of a routine review of publicly owned land, NASA identified the area as “underutilized” and a public land board recommended that it be sold on the open market.

But the heads of the Chesapeake Bay Commission and the Chesapeake Conservancy recently argued that the land should instead be transferred to the Patuxent Research Refuge next door.

“Conserving Area 400 would maintain a significant swath of forestland that will support the long-term health of the Chesapeake Bay watershed,” they wrote in an op-ed in The Washington Post. “By selling the property, NASA will all but ensure the development of Area 400 and permanent loss of forests.”

A survey of the land in 2004 found 70 species of bird, three species of owls, nine species of frogs and toads, white-tailed deer, short-tailed shrews, chipmunks, cottontail rabbits, red and gray foxes, opossums, raccoons, weasels and skunks.

NASA’s own review noted the “potential for the area to return to a natural, vegetative state” after the buildings are demolished as well as the possibility that it could be leased or even transferred to another federal agency.

Another option mentioned in the NASA review notes that the space agency could “place restrictions and/or limitations on construction of new buildings” in land that it sells or leases.

Environmentalists have also recently raised concerns about a proposal to build a high-speed maglev train through parts of the Patuxent Research Refuge.

The nonprofit Friends of Patuxent are asking supporters to contact Maryland’s two senators and their local U.S. representative and ask that the land be transferred to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service to be managed as part of the Patuxent Research Refuge.

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