The Army, in releasing a final Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) for the proposed growth, realignment and stationings of new existing Army aviation assets, counters its earlier preference for JBLM, choosing Ft. Carson, CO.
In Saturday's The News Tribune, the community learned the disappointing news: some but now not all 5,700 soldiers and 8,260 family members will come here. The current preference is that units already here, around 3,000 troops, will form a CAB and the new troops will go to Ft. Carson.
In responding to the announcement, spokespersons cited the region's lack of highway infrastructure to support additional troops - where clearly Ft. Carson's community could. While our local region and state departments have cooperatively addressed impacts from growth and the cycling of deployments, needed and necessary new capacity is not even on the horizon.
The Congress has recognized the imbalance of construction and growth on installations while feeder infrastructure off base languishes. The National Research Council has published a just released report calling for DoD investment in off-base highways.
We're glad to keep the 3,000 jobs, but acknowledge our state and regional lack of infrastructure development has lost out on 2,700 more jobs.
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1 comment:
It is a big problem, one that has closed some closed or realigned other bases around the country. I hope our leaders can figure this out.
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