Salazar urges air bases to beef up buffer zones

Ed Sealover, The Gazette

Published October 9, 2007 at midnight

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LAKEWOOD - Colorado's Air Force bases need to move more quickly to keep encroaching development from threatening their future, U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar said Monday.

The Colorado Democrat's comments came as he finds himself in the middle of a battle over whether the Army should study expansion of its Piñon Canyon Maneuver Site in Las Animas County, a move that could wipe out hundreds of thousand of acres of surrounding farmland.

Proponents have suggested that stopping the expansion could hurt Fort Carson in future rounds of base closures, although Salazar said he believes that will not be the case.

He is more concerned, however, that any development crowding Schriever or Peterson Air Force bases in El Paso County or Buckley Air Force Base in Aurora could hurt operations there. Any homes built right up to the bases' property lines not only would curb their ability to expand but could compromise missions that require flying or secrecy, he said.

A 2002 bill gave the secretary of defense the authority to set up buffer zones in conjunction with public and private landowners in order to protect training and testing areas. While Fort Carson has been purchasing conservation easements around its east side to build such a buffer, Air Force bases have been slow to set up similar programs, Salazar said.

To spur action, he wrote an amendment to add $50 million to the Department of Defense authorization bill this year for such programs nationwide. He also amended the DOD's authorization bill to require a study of how the department can better address encroachment issues.

Speaking to a luncheon of the Colorado Contractors Association and the Associated General Contractors of Colorado on Monday, Salazar emphasized the importance of this program and asked for the cooperation of the development community.

"We in Colorado are blessed because we are, in fact, the crown jewel of the nation's defense," he told a crowd of about 65 people at the Lakewood Country Club. "Development has come in and essentially encapsulated the perimeters of the bases. We need to be much more active in making sure that we are guarding these golden nuggets of Colorado."

The pressure on Schriever and Peterson is minimal now, but is expected to increase as the Colorado Springs-area population grows to the east, said Brian Binn, president of military affairs for the Greater Colorado Springs Chamber of Commerce. Peterson is starting to be surrounded even as it's working with the county to acquire a 23-acre buffer area, and Schriever, though currently more remote, is looking to see what long-term space it will need, he said.

The stakes are as high as the very existence of the bases at a time when the military is constantly considering closing or consolidating installations, Binn said. And yet even $50 million, if spread among bases across the country, can do only a little to preserve their security, he said.

"Anytime encroachment becomes an issue with your base, it really puts the future in jeopardy," Binn said. "Anytime you get encroachment, it can affect your mission."

The appropriations and authorization bills have passed the Senate and now go to a House- Senate conference committee.

Tony Milo, executive director of the Colorado Contractors Association, added that he does not expect any problems with the anti-encroachment effort from his industry, which understands why leaving buffer space around the bases is needed.

"If we end up encroaching too much on these Air Force bases, they're going to go elsewhere, and that's going to hurt the economy, so we need to help," Milo said.

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