GlobeSt.com SPECIAL REPORT: Base-Realignment Impact All Over the Map

NEW YORK CITY-Talk about your good-news/bad-news scenarios, the Base Realignment and Closure list proposed by the Department of Defense last week will have not one but a range of impacts on local communities around the nation. In a series of special UPDATE reports filed by GlobeSt.com reporters, effects of the base-closures range from doom–such as the $200-million economic hit in Texas–`to the $400-million economic gain forecast in Colorado.

Last Friday, the US Department of Defense released its list of military installations that are being recommended for closure or restructuring. Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld presented the list to the presidential-appointed independent Defense Base Realignment and Closure Commission. The department’s BRAC recommendations, if adopted, would close 33 major bases and realign 29 more, and, Rumsfeld noted during the news conference at the Pentagon, save the military an estimated net sum of $48 billion over the next two decades. When combined with the anticipated savings from overseas basing realignments around the world, the projected net savings increases to $64.2 billion.

Industry insiders comment that real estate developers are already salivating over the potential gain in developable acreage, but any long-term gains will come at a short-term cost. Southwest bureau chief Connie Gore reports, the folks of Bowie County, faced with a $200-million economic hit, are prepared to go to battle to keep Red River Army Depot and an ancillary base open, but they don’t hold out much hope of success. “BRAC experts are saying there’s not much that can be changed about last week’s Department of Defense recommendations,” Gore reports. “Still, it won’t keep locals from fighting.”