EFL:
After 60 years, the U.S. Navy yesterday officially closed its sprawling Roosevelt Roads Naval Air Station in eastern Puerto Rico — already dropping property values and flooding the surplus housing market. In the short term, Puerto Rico expected to suffer with closure of the base, which pumped an estimated $300 million a year into the U.S. commonwealth's economy. Long term, nearly 4 percent of the island's land area will be available for tourism, housing and industrial development. Rosy Roads, as the military installation has long been nicknamed, was shut because the Navy could no longer use the nearby island of Vieques for bombing practice after May 2003.
| Don't forget to thank Reverend Al, now, y'all... |
At one time, as many as 10,000 soldiers, civilian employees, outside contractors and their dependents lived on the base, though that number has shrunk throughout the years. As of Sept. 30, when President Bush signed legislation directing the Navy to close the base within six months, the naval base's population had already dropped to about 4,500. "Rosy Roads supported the Vieques bombing range, and with the closure of that, the requirement for a support base evaporated," said David MacKinnon, associate director of the Pentagon's Office of Economic Adjustment.
| You asked for it, and you got it. |
What surprises Mr. MacKinnon, a 30-year veteran of the Pentagon, about this particular base closing is the speed at which it's happening. "Six months is basically unheard of for a major base and employment center," he said. "In the 1990s, with all of the bases that closed — several hundred in total, including 97 major ones — the shortest time frame for closure was 18 months. More typical was two to three years. It really depended on how quickly the mission could be shut down."
| In the 1990s, the base closures were causing anguish for the locals. They hadn't been hopping up and down and demanding that the bases close. |
|