DENVER—Training Fort Carson soldiers away from the Army’s Pinon Canyon training site would be costly and keep soldiers away from home four or five months a year, acting Army Secretary Pete Geren said.
The Army has eyed a possible expansion of the Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site from 368 square miles to more than 1,000 square miles in southeast Colorado, in part to accommodate a new brigade combat team stationed at Fort Carson and to train for modern warfare.
While Cold War units required 45,000 to 108,000 acres for training, new units that are trained to control more territory with fewer soldiers require 138,000 to 160,000 acres for training, Geren said in a letter to Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo.
Allard had asked Geren a series of questions about intentions for the Pinon Canyon site, including details of the Army’s analysis of alternate training sites. Allard’s office released Geren’s responses Tuesday.
Ranchers, farmers, archaeologists and others have expressed concern that the Army could use eminent domain to force them to give up their land for an expansion. The Army has said it would hope to find willing sellers.
Alternative sites include the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, Calif., but transporting troops there would cost up to $15 million per year beyond costs for training at Pinon Canyon, Geren said.
There are no Bureau of Land Management or other federal lands capable of supporting readiness training within 200 miles of Fort Carson, he said.
Geren told Allard the Army is not spending money for an environmental impact statement for expansion this year, which would be needed before any action. But any statement would explore the alternatives of taking no action, expanding the training site to the west, expanding to the south, or expanding to the south and west, Geren said.
Geren did not directly answer Allard’s question of environmental or economic impacts of not expanding Pinon Canyon, instead saying that stationing the new brigade combat team at Fort Carson was expected to add 4,377 direct and 3,309 indirect jobs in the Colorado Springs area.
Allard said the information was helpful. He has not taken an official position on an expansion.
“Eminent domain questions as well as information on the economic impacts the expansion will have on southeastern Colorado will be important factors for me to consider when making my final decision on whether to support a Pinon Canyon expansion,” he said in a written statement.
