Our View - Saturday

PUEBLO COUNTY TELLS ARMY ‘NO'
Collision of property rights and national defense

It's official: Pueblo County commissioners oppose the Pentagon's plan to expand the Piñon Canyon Maneuver Site between Trinidad and La Junta by as much as 418,000 acres. The unanimous vote followed a presentation Thursday by area residents who believe the expansion would take family ranches and farms and exact a high socioeconomic burden on southeast Colorado.

The vote was symbolic. Pueblo County doesn't make decisions about national defense, or the Army's budget and training strategies. Generally, symbolic resolutions - i.e., "we support Girl Scouts" - serve as gratuitous displays of authority.

But Pueblo County's non-binding resolution about Piñon Canyon falls in a different category. It's a statement of opinion that's important. We don't need to know that politicians love puppies; we do need to know whether they favor military expansion in their own backyards. The resolution expresses an opinion the Army, Congress, the secretary of defense, and the president need to consider.

Politicians and ranchers concerned with Piñon Canyon are mostly patriots who love their country and the property rights protected by the Bill of Rights. They probably love the Army, which helps defend their rights. Yet they aren't going to sacrifice land and lifestyles for anything less than their country's vital interest.

National defense and property rights together protect individual freedoms that make our country the envy of the world. The military protects us from external threats. Property rights help keep internal tyranny in check.

Unfortunately, the Army's plans for Piñon Canyon have caused property rights and national defense to collide. Most ranchers won't budge, Pueblo County is backing them, and the Army has hinted that it might use eminent domain - a process in which the courts determine a "fair market value" and force a sale. The expansion plans are on hold, only because Colorado's congressional delegation has blocked spending on the project for now, buying more time for study. But the Army wants this project, and it isn't going away.

The issue has made strange bedfellows of conservative ranchers, the Colorado Cattlemen's Association, left-leaning green activists, Republican Sen. Wayne Allard, Democrat Sen. Ken Salazar, and an array of others who oppose the use of eminent domain.

By resorting to eminent domain, the Army would take private property in a way that should occur only in the interests of an honest and urgent national defense need. Whether the Army's plan reflects a genuine defense concern remains a legitimate question. Army officials have fallen far short of making a convincing case that this project would make the United States more secure.

Fort Carson, the largest employer in Colorado, is good for the economies of the region and the state. Some supporters of expansion have expressed concern that the Army might close Fort Carson if it can't expand the maneuver site. Army officials say the bigger maneuver site is needed to meet the demands of an additional 10,000 troops who will soon call the base home.

But farmers and ranchers who would be displaced are also integral to the economy, not to mention valuable aspects of the region's heritage and culture. Run them off in favor of the Army, and they will never come back. Meanwhile, the potential loss of Fort Carson will remain. The Department of Defense, as communities throughout the country have learned, can shut down a base with the wave of a wand - even on the heels of expansion.

Allard and Salazar have urged the Army to expand only with land from willing sellers. To address some of the obvious problems with a patchwork maneuver site, Salazar has proposed a compromise in which the Army would allow grazing to continue on the site, wherever possible. Under the proposal, the Army would be encouraged to lease land from landowners who don't wish to sell and would allow public access to cultural and historic sites in the area.

Colorado Springs and Pueblo have long and amicable relationships with Fort Carson. But the Army needs to prove that Piñon Canyon expansion is critical to national defense. Eminent domain is a drastic measure that's intended for drastic situations.

We need proof that no other facilities for military training are suitable, including military reservations in other states. We must know this plan has the smallest and most irreducible negative effect possible on the environment, the economy and private property rights. Only then will eminent domain be justifiable. Only then might the Army find support among local lawmakers, such as Pueblo County commissioners. Property rights and national defense shouldn't be at odds in the U.S., because both promote freedom.

GET THE MOST OUT OF EARTH HOUR

Don't forget to ignore Earth Hour tonight, between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. Better yet, consider using the occasion to teach children the difference between theory and fact.

Theory: Global warming.

Fact: Turning lights off for one hour does nothing to save Mother Earth and only creates a false sense of philanthropy in a world that needs to get real.

Earth Hour presents a great opportunity to question conventional wisdom, groupthink, fashion causes and fashion cures. It's a wonderful opportunity to instruct children about the dangers of fear-based propaganda.

Use Earth Hour as family time tonight. But don't be sheeple, sitting around in the dark pretending it will somehow help the common good. It won't.

Use Earth Hour to read, pray, study or debate. Devise a genuine and sustainable plan to save energy and help the household budget. Or solve some other problem. Bake bread from scratch and give it to the homeless. Just do something constructive and real - something more than joining a self-righteous ritual of turning off the lights.