February 21, 2005

March 18, 2005

Mr. Neil Pedersen, Administrator

Maryland State Highway Administration

707 N Calvert Street, MS-301

Baltimore MD 21202

Dear Mr. Pedersen:

We are filing this new Freedom of Information Act (FoIA) request for public information under the Maryland Public Information Act (PIA). We request that the Maryland State Highway Administration (SHA) provide us with information specified below produced during studies associated with the recently released Intercounty Connector Draft Environmental Impact Study (DEIS).

This is the second PIA we have filed. We feel this second PIA is in order because the response to the first PIA was not adequate. We have therefore been much more specific this time in the description of the information requested. The inadequacies of the response to the first PIA were detailed in a letter to SHA dated February 21, 2005 but we will briefly repeat them here to explain the inadequacies we want resolved.

Our first PIA request was dated January 17, 2005. We primarily requested “…the street address of each of the 87 residences threatened with displacement by the ICC project, for all alternatives, as cited in the DEIS”. SHA sent us a data CD on February 19 containing two spreadsheets dated September 30, 2004. The spreadsheets have a total between them of 28 sheets and 10,132 rows of name and address information. The individual sheets have meaningless names (e.g. “Sheet 1”, “Sheet 1 & 2”, etc.), there is not a single word of documentation defining what is in the files, sheets and columns, and nothing in the data identifies which 87 of the 10,132 rows contain the information we requested. Although the data we requested – the addresses of the homes to be destroyed by the various alignments – may well be embedded in the SHA data, that information is also in Montgomery County and Prince George’s County telephone books. As delivered to us, the SHA data has no more value than those telephone books!

We understand that a fee may be charged for providing this material. We ask that the fee be waived, as these data are essential to increase public understanding of the impacts of this huge project, and as we seek these data purely for non-profit purposes.

PIA Request

We specifically request that SHA provide the following information:

(1) Provide a clear, concise, complete list of the addresses of all those homes, and only those homes, that would experience full property displacements (i.e. be destroyed) because they lie in the right of way of an ICC alignment or because of any other reason associated with construction of the ICC.

This list should be a computer file identified by name or description as “Full Displacements.” This file should include:

(a) owner name(s);

(b) full street address including number, street, city, state and zip;

(c) the specific alignment option(s) (i.e. Rock Creek A/C, Northwest Branch A/B, Norbeck A/B, Spencerville A/B/C/D, Burtonsville A/B, Fairland A/B) that would affect each specific home.

(2) Provide a clear, concise, complete list of the addresses of those homes, and only those homes, that would experience any other impacts (other than full destruction) because of the ICC.

This list should be a computer file, preferably an Excel spreadsheet, identified by name or description as “Other Impacts.” This file should include:

(a) owner name(s);

(b) full street address including number, street, city, state and zip;

(d) the type(s) of non-displacement impact – including but not limited to noise increases, visual intrusion, air pollution, and partial property impacts;

(e) the quantified extent of the impact.

(3) Include documentation describing the contents of every file, of every individual spreadsheet sheet, and of every spreadsheet column.

(4) Provide an enumeration and clear definition of all “non-displacement impact” terms used in (2d) above, including but not limited to: “noise increase”, “visual intrusion”, “air pollution”, and “partial property impact”. Clearly define these terms of SHA parlance so that the information is meaningful and useful to us.

(5) Provide a clear description of how the “extent of impact” (2e) above is quantified. Include either the units of measure and their total possible range or a total enumeration of possible descriptive values used to quantify the extent of impact. Clearly define any additional terms not already defined in (4).

(6) Provide an explanation of the methods used to identify and quantify the non-displacement impacts listed in (2).

(7) Provide all information in computer files, preferably in Excel spreadsheet format, or in Word, CSV or another common electronic format, other than PDF. Email the files as attachments to us at ebnineteen@hotmail.com, or deliver them on CD to us.

Sincerely,

Eve Burton and Roger Metcalf

17104 Overhill Rd.

Derwood MD 20855

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