The Army failed to adequately explain to Congress how it would use an enlarged Piñon Canyon Maneuver Site and its reasons for downsizing its request from 418,577 acres to 100,000 acres, according to a Government Accountability Office study.
The report, released Tuesday, also questions why the Army says the estimated price of purchasing the land increased from $280 per acre in 2007 to a higher, undisclosed figure.
In the report, the GAO said the Army budgeted $52.6 million over three years to expand the Piñon Canyon Maneuver Site — which sits 100 miles southeast of Fort Carson — but the Army did not say how much would be spent per acre.
According to the report, an Army official said the increased cost is partly a reflection of how buying from only willing sellers and not using eminent domain can raise the price-per-acre average. The report also said the Army shortened the acquisition schedule from five to three years in an attempt to “accommodate the concerns of expansion opponents” who said uncertainties over expansion caused them economic hardship.
U.S. Sen. Mark Udall said he was disappointed in what the report disclosed.
“The purpose of this GAO review was to get clarity from the Army on why it needs to expand this particular site and why the existing 235,000 acres it now uses is not adequate,” the Colorado Democrat said. “Unfortunately, the GAO reports that the Army has not provided sufficient answers to a number of key questions — among them, why the revised 100,000-acre expansion was selected.”
Udall said he is against funding further expansion until the Army explains why it needs the additional land.
The GAO report said the Army provided satisfactory answers to 23 of the 29 questions it was required to address. Among the satisfactory responses were those that discussed existing training facilities and the need for additional land.
Keith Eastin, the assistant secretary of the Army for installations and environment, said the GAO recognized “the Army’s core needs.”
“Most importantly for Congress and the public, on the critically important questions asked by Congress on the ‘need for any proposed addition of training land to support units stationed or planned to be stationed at Fort Carson,’ the GAO accepted all of the Army’s responses,” Eastin said.
But the GAO said the Army did not adequately explain why it lowered its request to 100,000 acres.
The report also recommended that the Army explain to Congress how the site would be used for training and what the benefits would be in adding the acreage.
The Army identified the Piñon Canyon site as one installation where potential land acquisitions would be a feasible solution to an expected 4.5 million-acre training-land shortage by 2013.
Originally, the Army said it would need to acquire up to 418,577 acres. But after the proposed expansion drew criticism from various landowners and interest groups, the Army said it would seek only 100,000 additional acres, south of the maneuver site.
The GAO said the recommended analysis for the 100,000-acre expansion would help the public understand, among other things, how much of the additional acreage would be used for training, what type of training could be conducted and what the estimated costs would be to maintain the extra acres.
In response to the report, the Army said it could have done a better job communicating its land-acquisition needs at Piñon Canyon.
The Army said it is implementing, with the Department of Defense, “an outreach step” to ensure better communication for stakeholders in future land acquisitions.
Mack Louden, a board member of Not 1 More Acre and a rancher in southeastern Colorado who has sued the Army to stop the expansion, said the Army simply did not answer the critical questions it must answer.
“We have been asking the same questions for three years, and they have not answered them,” Louden said. “They were required to do it, and they didn’t do it.”
Louden claimed the Army’s refusal to answer questions has “put a real dark cloud over everything,” making it impossible for ranchers to embark on capital projects and causing a dramatic, negative effect on land values.
U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo., said the release of the report “is consistent with the process we put in place last year to determine the need, if any, for expanding the Piñon Canyon Maneuver Site and what impacts expansion would have on southeastern Colorado. The public deserves a say in this process.”
He said landowners, elected officials and other community members will, in the coming months, have an opportunity to comment on the report.
Howard Pankratz: 303-954-1939 or hpankratz@denverpost.com
