0606_brac.mp3

Air Force officials have told community leaders in Galena that the Air Force facilities there will close no later than September 30th, 2008. 

When the Base Realignment and Closure Commission ordered the closure of the Galena forward station last year, it urged the Air Force to allow adequate time for the community to prepare for the economic impact of the closure.     

Galena city and tribal leaders thought they had between 5 and 6 years to get ready for the Air Force’s departure.  But now they are confronted with a shorter timeframe. 

From Galena, Tim Bodony reports.   

Brigadier General David Snyder from the Pacific Air Force headquarters in Hawaii visited Galena briefly on June first.  At a meeting with local officials, he confirmed that the Air Force would complete the shutdown of the Galena Forward Operating Location during the 2008 funding year, with a deadline of September 30, 2008. 

That’s 3 years ahead of the target deadline listed in the Department of Defense Base Redevelopment and Realignment Manual, put out on March 1^st of this year, which states that all closures and restructuring orders should be finished by September 15, 2011.   

General Snyder was unavailable for comment for this story, due to an upcoming conference in Australia. 

Snyder’s deputy at Pacific Air Force command, Colonel Ron Kennedy, explains that the deadline set out in BRAC law is a general timeframe, and the Air Force and other armed services ultimately have the authority to set firm deadlines and make other specific plans. 

[kennedy2   “this authority ensures that essential combat capabilities are retained, while allowing sufficient planning time to analyze and eliminate community impact through the initiating actions with other federal, state, and private organizations.    :15 ]

The 2006 BRAC manual also compels the military to act expeditiously with closures and realignments whenever possible.  But Colonel Kennedy dispels the notion that the Pentagon has put branches of the military under added pressure to speed up the actions mandated by the 2005 BRAC round, as a cost savings measure in a time of war. 

Dean Westlake was one of those in attendance at the meeting with General Snyder on June first in Galena.  As the Tribal Administrator for Galena’s Louden Tribal Council, he has been heavily involved in the BRAC process, and has been critical of how the Air Force has implemented the BRAC recommendation for closure so far. 

[westlake1 “we had placed a lot of credence in the BRAC Committee themselves.  They had recommended that we be closed towards the end of the BRAC session, that cycle is approximately 5 years.  We thought we had time,   we thought we had breathing room.  We could look at the base, and how to properly reuse the whole buildings out there, and look at who wants to use them and why you want to use them.  We had revisited one building in particular, because it would be some viable class space, and the initial survey had show n that none of us were interested in it.  So these are things that we really need to work on, and we need time to do this.”    0:38]

Adding classroom space would be part of the expansion of the Galena school district’s high school boarding school and post-secondary training programs – which has emerged as the centerpiece of emerging redevelopment plan for the former Galena air force base.  The City of Galena received a million dollars for boarding school expansion in the capital budget, passed by the state legislature in May.  And the Governor recently signed a bill into law which increases the per-student allocation for boarding school students in Galena, Nenana and Bethel, to defray the cost of room and board. 

The establishment of the boarding school in Galena was also the key component in the community’s reuse strategy in the 90s, when the Air Force scaled back its presence in Galena from full time operations to a warm status forward station, maintained by civilian contractors. 

Since then, the Air Force has been the biggest purchaser of electricity in Galena, and has paid to maintain the utility infrastructure on the base, upon which the boarding school and other agencies, such as BLM, rely. 

But the State of Alaska, and not the Air Force, owns the land under the base.   Because of this, requests for information from the Air Force have had to go through the State, and Galena’s status with the arm of the Defense Department that awards redevelopment grants has been uncertain. 

The Galena leaders that work on BRAC redevelopment argue that working through technicalities like that take time, and having a cohesive plan in place by the fall of 2008 will be difficult, given the what they have seen thus far. 

When asked if the Air Force could postpone the closure if the community wasn’t ready for it, Colonel Kennedy reaffirms the Air Force is providing adequate time. 

[Kennedy4   “I understand their concerns.  The September 30 2008 closure date fully recognizes the Commission’s recommendation and request to allow the local community time to prepare for the future.  PACAF has already taken several measures to help Galena’s economic transition, enough though the Air Force no longer has a mission at Galena FOL.  Examples include continued facility use and monetary support for the Galena School District.  Again, the Air Force will continue to work with the State and local community throughout this transition.”  ]

Louden Tribal Administrator Dean Westlake is increasingly wondering if closing a facility without endangering jobs and hurting the economy is a process better left to the civilians.

[Westlake5   “perhaps this wasn’t the venue we should be seeking relief in.  Perhaps these being good soldiers, are following orders, and we can respect that.  We are coming up to the point where their orders are contradictory to the health and welfare of this community.  The social and economic implications here I think are beyond their pay grade.  They shouldn’t have to be worrying about things like this.”   :24 ]

BRAC-related job cuts have already occurred in Galena, after the Air Force allowed a runway maintenance contract with the State Department of Transportation to expire at the end of March.  State and local officials, including Governor Murkowski, spoke up in opposition to the move, saying it was not consistent with the BRAC recommendations calling for a gradual transition. 

The parties struck a compromise by which the Air Force agreed to pay the salaries of two heavy equipment operators and agreed to contribute to airport maintenance in one form or another up until October 2008.  But 2 of the 7 state D-O-T employees still lost their jobs.

One thing that is likely to continue past the 2008 deadline is the Air Force’s ongoing environmental remediation and monitoring.  The final cleanup plan for contaminated sites around Galena is not due until the middle of next year, and just last week, Air Force contractors were in Galena to survey for unexploded ordinance.