[CPEO-IRF] Eielson AFB (AK) - Realignment worse than closure?

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

The significance of the local efforts to "save Eielson" Air Force Base 
in central Alaska, cited in the article excerpted and linked below, is 
that the Pentagon has not proposed to close it. Rather, it has proposed 
a realignment that would leave two Air National Guard units at the base. 
Nevertheless, the action could reduce employment there by 4,711 jobs.

The 19,790-acre base is on the Superfund "National Priorities List." 
Nearly $56 million has been spent on cleanup thus far, and the Air Force 
officially expects to spend $8.4 million more.

Downsizing the operations at Eielson will dramatically reduce the Air 
Force's economic contribution to the Fairbanks area without, apparently, 
freeing up any land for alternative use. Operated by an Air National 
Guard skeleton crew, the base will remain an Air Force base with plans 
for only limited cleanup, based upon its continued as an airfield.

Thus, from a local point of view, realignment could be worse than 
closure. That is, the area would be better able to recover from the 
departure of the active Air Force if the base were actually closed.

This is not the only effective closure without land transfer on the 
Pentagon's BRAC 2005 list. Brunswick Naval Air Station in Maine, for 
example, is slated to lose 4,266 jobs, but the airfield will remain 
operational - apparently with no planes based there.

Lenny

***


Help save Eielson

Fairbanks Daily News-Miner
May 22, 2005

As the local effort to spare Eielson Air Force Base from a massive 
reduction in its size increases day to day, individual residents of the 
Fairbanks North Star Borough may be wondering if there's anything that 
one ordinary citizen can do.

Joe and Jane Fairbanks, perhaps sitting inside on this cloudy, drizzly 
Interior weekend, might be thinking that the work of saving Eielson is 
better left to those who know the particulars about Eielson's strategic 
importance, its capabilities and the details of the Defense Department's 
decision to all but close the base.

While the military importance of Eielson may best be left for the 
experts, there are ways that Joe and Jane Fairbanks and others in this 
town can get involved in the drive to save our Air Force neighbor.

...

For the entire article, see
http://www.news-miner.com/Stories/0,1413,113~7252~2882791,00.html

--
Lenny Siegel
Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
c/o PSC, 278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
http://www.cpeo.org

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