Fort Carson
Fort
Carson officials unveiled options to house thousands of new troops Wednesday night, including even more growth than had already been announced.
The post is preparing an environmental impact statement on how it will deal with a planned fifth combat brigade and the possibility of a large helicopter unit.
Pentagon officials plan to house more than 30,000 soldiers at Fort Carson by 2013, an increase from 17,500 today.
A draft of the impact statement is not due out until fall.
The Army plans to build more offices, warehouses and housing units and has to figure out how it will handle issues from utilities to endangered species that could be displaced by the additional troops.
The Army added a new twist by studying the potential for about 3,000 more soldiers coming to Colorado Springs and a major overhaul of Butts Army Airfield.
“Right now we are being considered for a potential medium combat aviation brigade, that’s something that just came down recently,” said Rob Ford, who is heading the environmental impact assessment team for Fort Carson.
The helicopter unit would bring 116 helicopters, crews and maintenance personnel. The Army is apparently studying either adding a new helicopter brigade to its arsenal, or moving one here from another base.
The extra infantry brigade, announced by the Army in December, would bring 3,900 soldiers, and they would start moving to the post in 2011.
To house the units, the post is examining three sites, one near Interstate 25 on the northeast side of the post and two that lie south of the post’s main housing areas along Wilderness Road.
At a meeting on the plan at a Colorado Springs hotel, post officials turned back questioning from opponents of a massive proposed expansion of a southeast Colorado training area that the brass says is completely unrelated.
“That’s something I won’t be talking about,” said Tom Warren, who is overseeing Piñon Canyon Maneuver Site issues for the post.
Opponents of the Army’s proposed 418,000-acre expansion of the Piñon Canyon site, near Trinidad, held their own meeting before the Army confab. They say the Army is trying to pull a fast one by bringing in more troops without publically addressing its expansion desires.
“If they crowd Fort Carson with as many soldiers as they are talking about, they’ll have to grow down there,” said Tony Hass, a rancher and Piñon Canyon Expansion Opposition Coalition member who lives near the training site. “It’s connected.”
The opposition group drew more than 70 people to its meeting, while the Army’s meeting drew about 40, including more than a dozen Army employees.
Questions ranged from traffic to water rights. The Army said it will also examine whether the extra troops should come here at all.
“The evaluation of potentially not moving these units will be in the document,” Warren said.
