Our
View: Bad time to close military bases
Anyone
living in Southern California has heard
the rumblings down south coming from the
vacant military bases in Tustin and El Toro.
School
districts, airports, giant parks, university
extensions, all have been proposed as uses
for the giant parcels of land right in the
heart of some of the more valuable areas
of Orange County. But then the reality sets
in. Nobody wants an international airport
in their backyard, especially not when your
house is worth more than $1 million. The
school district was disappointed to find
that, what a surprise, the military had
so grossly polluted the land that they could
not legally bring children around that kind
of mess.
Now
Rumsfeld will set off to pick up to 25 percent
of the bases around the country to close
in 2005. This has the potential to even
further damage our already frail economy,
and not only that but it will leave cities
and counties or whoever else buys the property
with the problem of cleaning up the mess
that the military has left behind.
Nothing
against decreasing military spending, but
the infrastructure cuts are probably just
to fund some bomb Donald really wants for
Christmas. For many towns that were built
around the bases, the men and families stationed
there is the lifeblood of the economy. Even
while the men and women of the military
are stationed in Iraq many towns like Twentynine
Palms have felt the difference in their
pocket books.
The
environmental factors are an even bigger
deal. If 100 bases out of the 425 in the
nation are closed there is going to be a
lot of jet fuel to clean out of the groundwater
and a lot of questions about what you can
do with huge amounts of land that is sick
with pollution.
It
is understandable that the U.S. military
services need to par back their extensive
base system, but there has got to be a slower
way to take this action that will have a
huge impact on the nation. Although our
area has already sustained the major hit
when the Tustin Marine base, the El Toro
Marine base and the Long Beach Naval Shipyard
were closed, California could still suffer
more blows in the next round of cuts. Maybe
Rumsfeld should do an economic report on
the impact before he starts boarding up
any windows.
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