This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2005, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Utah's Hill Air Force Base does not appear on a Defense Department
list of military installations slated for closure. Dugway Proving
Grounds, Tooele Army Depot and Utah's National Guard bases also were
left off the base closure list.
The list did include one Utah installation: Tooele's Deseret Chemical
Depot. However, that installation which employes about 250 people
already had been slated to complete the destruction of its stockpile of
chemical munitions by 2008 and close if no new munitions were brought in.
The absence of any of Utah's major military installations from the
closure list released today in Washington, D.C., is sure to draw a heavy
sigh of relief across the state, nowhere more so than in Davis and Weber
counties where the closing of Hill could have been disastrous for local
economies.
More than 23,500 people are employed at the base, home of the Ogden
Air Logistics Center one of three such remaining Air Force facilities
in the United States. The base is one of the state's largest employers,
and it's economic impact on the state has been estimated by base
officials at up to $2.8 billion.
There will be some slight shifting of mission responsibilities, with
Hill losing 13 military and 444 civilian positions, but gaining 291
military and 24 civilian jobs for a net loss of 145 jobs. Observers,
however, say Hill's chances to gain additional work from other closing
bases are good.
Military officials and local supporters had been optimistic that Hill
would survive, noting that redundancies that existed in the Air Force's
depot system in the 1990s had been reduced or eliminated since the last
round of base closures shut down two air logistics centers. Both of the
other centers also survived, with slight net gains, on the Pentagon's list.
There was little concern that Dugway Proving Grounds would be closed.
It is the nation's only chemical and biological defense proving ground.
About 1,400 people work at Dugway.
Few people were willing to opine on what would happen to Tooele,
however. The base had served as the maintenance center for much of the
Army's wheeled vehicles until 1993, when that mission was moved. About
550 people remain at the base, which now serves primarily as one of the
several munitions storage depots.
The 28-page Base Realignment and Closure list is the Defense
Department's official recommendations for which bases should be closed
or reconfigured to save money. Overall, the Pentagon list showed its
intention to slash 26,187 civilian and military jobs, close 33 major
bases and about 150 smaller ones.
Many of the closures were reserve centers, recruiting offices and
regional finance and accounting offices. In Utah, the 96th Regional Readiness Command at Fort Douglas will lose a 38
military and 15 civilian positions.
A nine-member commission will now review the suggestions and spread
out across the nation to take testimony from affected communities.
The commission, however, has limited power to change the Pentagon's list.
"We know that if you come out on the list, there is a 99 percent
chance of being closed," said Vickie McCall, president of a citizen's
group trying to protect Utah's military installations. Similarly, the
commission is not expected to add any bases to the list of closures.