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The Army, in releasing a final Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) for the proposed growth, realignment and stationings of new existing Army aviation assets, counters its earlier preference for JBLM, choosing Ft. Carson, CO. 

In Saturday's The News Tribune, the community learned the disappointing news:  some but now not all 5,700  soldiers and 8,260 family members will come here.  The current preference is that units already here, around 3,000 troops, will form a CAB and the new troops will go to Ft. Carson.

In responding to the announcement, spokespersons cited the region's lack of highway infrastructure to support additional troops - where clearly Ft. Carson's community could.  While our local region and state departments have cooperatively addressed impacts from growth and the cycling of deployments, needed and necessary new capacity is not even on the horizon. 

The Congress has recognized the imbalance of construction and growth on installations while feeder infrastructure off base languishes.  The National Research Council has published a just released report calling for DoD investment in off-base highways. 

We're glad to keep the 3,000 jobs, but acknowledge our state and regional lack of infrastructure development has lost out on 2,700 more jobs.

Most of you have probably followed the developing controversy within the Tillicum community about proposed gate relocation for Washington National Guard's HQ at Camp Murray.

Seemingly a simple question of where to stack the queue turns into a more complex problem when the needful expansion of I-5 is considered. Recently, Lakewood, as lead in the Office of Economic Adjustment funded study of I-5 between (roughly) SR-512 and DuPont, found a necessity to accommodate the employment growth at JBLM to increase capacity and support infrastructure.

That point, among several, is brought home in an open letter by WNG Adjutant General Timothy Lowenberg on the issue pledging to work with (not "rolling over") the installation's neighbors. That's all here in the enclosed letter.

Pierce County's long awaited and continually delayed Cross-Base Highway keeps looking for a solution to a need long overdue. For a project that started with a donation of right-of-way worth millions of dollars by Ft. Lewis, that head start in funding hasn't made much progress against other state-wide projects that keep bumping the Cross-Base Highway.