In yet another example of the problems created by the effort to shut down military facilities, a feud over long-dormant Army ammunition plants in Indiana and Tennessee is heating up. The battle pits contractor ICI Americas Inc., which has a contract to manage the sites for the Army, against neighboring localities that want the land turned over to them.
The localities have been lobbying Reps. Zach Wamp, R-Tenn., and Lee Hamilton, D-Ind., to pressure the Pentagon to sell off Chattanooga's 7,000-acre Volunteer Army Ammunition Plant and the 10,000-acre Indiana Army Ammunition Plant. Chattanooga mayor Jim Kinsey has cited the Volunteer site's status as his major challenge since taking office in April, while Indiana localities have retained lobbyists in Washington to plead their case.
Now their efforts may be starting to pay off: In early November, the Army Industrial Operations Command in Rock Island, Ill., told the Army the Indiana and Tennessee plants "were no longer needed for current or future production." Almost simultaneously, Wamp announced that he's considering an amendment to next spring's national security authorization bill that would hand over several hundred acres of the Chattanooga site to RiverValley Partners, a local public-private development group.
Wamp cited the Army's $5 million a year in maintenance costs at a site that's been shuttered for two decades; the Army currently leases space to businesses, utilities and government agencies through ICI Americas, but it technically must keep plant in a state of military readiness. "The leasing approach has been frustrating for everyone involved because it has been very difficult to secure financing for private projects on military property," Wamp told The Chattanooga Times. "This is what we need in order for industrial development to really take place at this site."
The Army must decide--possibly as soon as next month--whether to declare the land surplus, and officials there have already been lobbied to do so. In August, Indiana state and county officials met with Kenneth J. Oscar, the Army's deputy assistant secretary for procurement, to push their case. In Indiana, the Industrial Operations Command's recent ruling prompted a flurry of entities, both public and private, to jockey for position in case the site is sold off.
"We were extremely pleased with the IOC's decision, because for first time, the Army operations command said the facility was no longer needed for its military mission," said Bernard R. Toon, a Washington lobbyist whose firm, Sagamore Associates, has been retained by a local Indiana county. "The local government was encouraged by that, because they feel they can finally move forward on economic and parks development on a significant piece of land that's been in the Army's possession for decades."
But ICI Americas and its supporters say that the recent developments are vastly overblown. They note that even if the Army decides it wants to sell the land, the site would still have to be offered first to other potential users in the military and the government. ICI also has a purchase option. Only if these entities pass on the deal could it go to local governments for a fair-market sale (though a handful of Indiana entities are trying to get an earlier crack at the land by teaming up with federal agencies who would "sponsor" their proposals).
In the past four decades, the Army has given up a total of 1,300 acres from the Volunteer site. Each time, the process took several years or more to complete. ICI touts its public-private initiative as a way to get the land leased more quickly and cheaply. Officials there chalk up the flap to declining post-Cold War budgets. The Army, it says, feels pressured to slash maintenance costs by cutting loose ammunition plants, which tend to be especially large. In turn, localities sense a bargain.
Wamp "wants to help local political officials control the process, rather than the Army," said Charles S. (Sid) Saunders, the ICI official in charge of both the Indiana and Tennessee sites. "It's a classic power control situation. If we could establish a partnership to share in the value, that would be the best of both worlds. But they'd rather take 100 percent now than get 50 percent later."
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