Maine receives top Army environmental award for Woodville Training Site development

AUGUSTA

The Maine Army National Guard was selected as the winner of the 2022 Secretary of the Army Environmental Award for Natural Resources Conservation in the under 10,000-acre installation award category. It will advance to compete as the Army’s nominee for the 2022 Secretary of Defense Environmental Awards in the same category.

Maine’s selection stems from efforts over the past two years to facilitate the creation of an over 5,400-acre training site, while balancing development objectives with the protection of over 1,000 acres of wetlands and critical habitat for endangered species such as the Atlantic salmon and Canada lynx.

“There has been a tremendous amount of effort put into this gradual project to bring a state-of-the-art military training facility to Maine,” said Maj. Gen. Douglas Farnham, Maine’s adjutant general.

The project began in 2013 with a bond to acquire significant acreage in township T2R9 NWP, followed by additional land in neighboring Woodville. Recent accomplishments include a full environmental assessment and all associated land use permitting, public forums, construction on a 25-meter small arms and light demolitions range, multi-purpose operations buildings, as well as on a battalion-sized encampment area and replacement of 7 miles of the original network of old logging roads.

The Maine Army National Guard intends to continue developing the site to include more permanent infrastructure, and expanding the newly constructed 25-meter range to a 1500-meter range suitable for training to new Army small arms standards, as well as crew-served weapons.