Shortfalls in funding could prevent needed road improvements from being put in place before 22,000 new military jobs move to Fort Belvoir, the U.S. Army acknowledged in an impact statement on the move released on Friday.
The statement validates, to a degree, the chief complaint of local officials who are scrambling to prepare for the Pentagon-sized work force moving to the base by 2011. Fairfax County supervisors have warned that the move, part of federal Base Realignment and Closure mandates, will swamp the local road network.
The Army, in its final environmental impact statement, said the failure to complete the $458 million in necessary improvements would result in “unavoidable impacts on traffic.”
“I think we’ve always said that the … projects would require funding from a source other than the Department of Defense,” Fort Belvoir spokesman Don Dees said. “The language in the final environmental impact statement represents our assertion that we can’t do it all.”
The more than 600-page document lays out how the BRAC shift will affect Fort Belvoir and the surrounding area. Friday opens up a 30-day review period for the impact statement before the Army completes a “record of decision” that will cement the course of the base realignment.
The Army drew fire from the Audubon Society when it released a draft copy of the environmental statement,which the group said glossed over some of the harm to air, water and wildlife the job shift would cause.
Much of the new development and 18,000 of the new jobs are slated to move to the 800-acre Engineer Proving Ground, a former explosives testing site that has reverted to natural land since its closing. To lessen the impact on the site, some of those jobs could be shifted instead to a 70-acre expanse of warehouses in Springfield owned by the General Services Administration.
Local officials declined to comment on the impact statement because they did not have time to review it.
