Oregon weapons depot to close
Board's decision about transfers of Oregon Air National Guard jets is likely today
August 25, 2005
PORTLAND -- The commission deciding the fate of military bases across the country voted Wednesday to close the U.S. Army's chemical-weapons depot near Hermiston after its deadly arsenal is destroyed under international treaty.
The Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission, known as BRAC, was not expected to vote until today on the most contentious Oregon proposal, transferring more than a dozen F-15 Oregon Air National Guard fighter jets operated by the Portland-based 142nd Fighter Wing to New Jersey and Louisiana.
On the first of at least two days of meetings, the base-closing panel agreed with proposals to shutter hundreds of small and large facilities in all parts of the country, including major bases such as Fort Monmouth in New Jersey, a naval air station in Georgia and an Army garrison in Michigan.
The recommendations will be sent to President Bush, who can accept them or reject them in their entirety. Congress also will have a chance to veto the plan but has not taken that step in four previous rounds of closures.
The Umatilla Chemical Depot opened in 1941, two months before the start of World War II, and became a repository for part of the nation's chemical weapons stockpile in the 1960s.
The commission in Washington, D.C., voted unanimously Wednesday to approve the depot closure, reconfirming closure plans made in 1988.
But closure must wait until the stockpile of obsolete chemical weapons and mustard gas has been destroyed, which may take until 2012.
Oregon Sens. Ron Wyden, a Democrat, and Gordon Smith, a Republican, praised the vote.
Wyden said it "means that the Defense Department can focus on safeguarding and permanently cleaning up the chemicals stored in eastern Oregon."
The Defense Department will be responsible for the cost of environmental cleanup in and around the depot, Wyden and Smith said in a joint written statement.
The panel also approved relocating two Army Reserve Centers in Portland to Camp Withycombe in Clackamas County.
Today's decision could include a recommendation to transfer eight KC-135 tankers, flown by the Air Force Reserve 939th Air Refueling Wing out of the Portland base, to Oklahoma and Kansas.
Oregon would lose more than 1,000 military or civilian jobs under the closure and realignment plan, including 564 at the Portland base and 512 at the Umatilla depot.
Nationwide, the commission signed off on most of the Pentagon's plans to close, shrink or expand hundreds of small and large Army and Navy facilities from coast to coast. It has yet to take up any Air Force proposals, including the Portland decision.