[CPEO-MEF] Encroachment

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

The U.S. armed forces are under assault. The adversary is disorganized.
It has no ideology. But it's found throughout the United States. And it
is advancing as inexorably as a glacier. "Sentries" have sounded the
alarm, and top brass are swarming to devise defenses.

This threat to U.S. military operations is civilian development -
housing, businesses, and public institutions which are being built
closer and closer to once-remote military airfields and training areas.
The military calls it "encroachment."

Military bases that once scattered their jets at all hours are starting
to hear from disgruntled neighbors and civilian pilots. Others are
finding new local opposition to the noise, blast, and even emissions
from live fire exercises.

Encroachment puts pressure on bases in another significant way. Once
bases represented a small fraction of the undeveloped habitat in most
regions. Now, in many parts of the country, they are biotic islands, 
shouldering the legal responsibility for preserving endangered species
and migratory birds.

One solution is to switch rather than fight - to shutter threatened
facilities. Indeed, encroachment has been an important factor in rating
facilities for closure, and it should remain so. Sections of closed
bases can be developed, while others can be preserved as habitat. But I
don't expect the armed forces to close up shop everywhere there's a
conflict with urbanization.

The obvious compromise is the creation of buffer zones. Where adjacent
property is already publicly owned, that's not too much of a problem.
But where it's not, someone has to buy the properties before imminent
development causes the values to skyrocket.

I suggest that the Defense Department, as part of its evaluation of
facilities for closure, also systematically evaluate which bases and
ranges it believes it must keep open. Where encroachment is a problem,
it should partner with state, local, and tribal governments to purchase
adjacent property outright, or even just to purchase the development
rights, to be held by a non-military agency or trust. In partnership
with surrounding communities and natural resource agencies, the Defense
Department should determine which beneficial uses of the property do not
conflict with essential military operations. For example, parks and
other forms of open space may be compatible. In the southwest, such
buffer zones could help solve another public policy challenge: wind
farms and solar arrays might prove to be valuable regional assets that
don't complain about military noise.

Clearly there needs to be a systematic mechanism for predicting and
resolving encroachment conflicts. Perhaps it will be necessary it change
federal statutes to enable the military to fund the purchase of property
or development rights for non-military ownership. And not all conflicts
will be resolved amicably with buffer zones. But unless something of
this sort is done, neither the growing communities that are advancing on
military installations nor the military itself will be comfortable with
the outcome.

LS
-- 


Lenny Siegel
Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
c/o PSC, 222B View St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/968-1126
lsiegel@cpeo.org
http://www.cpeo.org

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