When you put a Marine's back up against a wall, he comes out fighting. That's how Al Baldasaro of Londonderry describes his dispute with the state over 5 acres taken from him by eminent domain for an access road to the Manchester Airport.

Baldasaro, a retired Marine sergeant, is going to court to challenge the taking, arguing that the state is seeking to preserve more than 750 acres of wetlands when it is only using 12 for the road.

"Our land has nothing to do with the access road. They're not building anything on it. We're five miles away from there," he said.

His fight has caught the attention of local Free Staters and other libertarians, who plan a protest rally at the airport this afternoon.The issue of eminent domain has also become part of Baldasaro's own campaign for a seat in the Legislature.

Libertarians were already on high alert after the U.S. Supreme Court's June decision affirming the taking of private property in Connecticut for a commercial development project.

"We don't want to become like New London, Conn., where they're just handing out property to developers," said Kat Dillon, who operates a libertarian Web site called New Hampshire Underground (nhunderground.com). She has organized today's rally hoping to draw attention to the issue.

Dave Ridley, another libertarian activist, says eminent domain is the perfect issue for the group to take a stand on, because the state's involved. "It makes it everyone's business," he said.

Baldasaro is one of about 70 property owners in north Londonderry whose land the state has been acquiring for wetlands mitigation for the road that will connect Manchester Airport with the Everett Turnpike. Many of the property owners have already settled with the state. Others are in negotiations with the Department of Transportation over the amount of money they have been offered for their acreage.

Jim Pincence, the only other property owner whose land has been taken by eminent domain so far, lost 109 of his 112 acres. He is suing over the issue of just compensation, arguing that the state's offer doesn't come close to the assessed value of his land. Pincence declined to say what the state offered.

But other property owners in the area have been offered $1,000 to $3,000 per acre. Baldasaro was offered about $2,000 per acre for 4.9 acres. He bought his house on 6 acres for $287,000 in 2002.

The state stands by the appraisals and the land acquisitions. "We have a project that was found to be a necessity and in the benefit of the state," said Bob Barry, who has managed the wetlands mitigation for the Department of Transportation. "The lands that we're looking at are really not developable."

Baldasaro's house is perched on a small hill that gives way in back to a low and reedy marsh. Its part of the Little Cohas Marsh and the town watershed, but it's land that Baldasaro says is manmade wetlands, with the water level kept high by a dam the state was supposed to dismantle last year. He's fighting the taking itself, insisting his land is not for sale at any price.

Tom Dolan, chairman of the Londonderry Town Council, is more sanguine about the state's land acquisitions. "The land itself is going to look no different," he said. "The same ducks will be swimming there, the same fishing will go on, as if nothing's happened."

Baldasaro disagrees. "It is going to change," he said. "I have no control over anyone walking back and forth on my property, in my back yard. I have children. I have no control of any hunters that are going to shoot there."

He sent a letter a month ago to state offices and to all of his state representatives saying that as a veteran of the Gulf War, he remembers what it was like to give the Kuwaitis back the land that Saddam Hussein had taken. Even if it was only a pile of sand, it was theirs, he says.

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