Congressman proposes condemnation ban to help Piñon expand

A Colorado congressman is trying to help the Army get training land in Las Animas County by banning the service from seizing it. GOP Rep. Mike Coffman’s HR5067, introduced Tuesday, would forbid the use of condemnation for expansion of Fort Carson’s Piñon Canyon Maneuver Site. By doing that, the bill would set in stone the Army’s pledge that it won’t seize land to add 100,000 acres to the 235,000-acre training site near Trinidad. But the measure, by allaying land-seizure fears, could also avert an all-out expansion ban that Congress has placed on the project annually as part of the Pentagon budget bill, a Coffman spokesman said. “We must respect the private property rights of those who own ranch lands in the proposed 100,000 acre expansion area,” Coffman, of Aurora, said in a statement. “They should neither have to fear that the government will take their land nor the worry that government, at any level, will restrict their rights by making it difficult for them to sell or lease their land to the U.S. Army should they choose to do so.” But even if a law passes banning condemnation proceedings, opponents to the expansion say they won’t shrink from the fight. “There’s no way to acquire that much land without condemning somebody,” said Piñon Canyon Expansion Opposition Coalition President Lon Robertson of Kim, a nearby town. Robertson said opponents will still seek a funding ban for the fiscal year that starts Oct.1, using a tried-and-true argument. “They have enough land already,” he said...more

Robertson is right. As I've posted before:


"The Base Structure Report(pdf) for FY 2008 contains the land profile for the Department of Defense. The introduction to the report states, "The Depart of Defense remains one of the world's largest 'landlords' with a physical plant consisting of more than 545,700 facilities (buildings, structures and linear structures) located on more than 5400 sites, on approximately 30 million acres."

The land profile further refines that to 29.8 million acres owned or controlled by DOD. More than 98% of the land is in the US, with the Army managing 52% and the Air Force 33%.

29.8 million acres equals 46,562.5 square miles. How do you put that in perspective? Let's try this: Of the Thirteen Original Colonies, six of them (Rhode Island, Delaware, Connecticut, New Jersey, New Hampshire & Massachusetts) would fit into the land mass controlled by DOD, with 8359 square miles or 5.3 million acres left over. In other words, you could add another New Jersey.

29.8 million acres and they don't have enough land to practice? They may have a turf problem or a setting of priorities problem, but they don't have a lack of land problem."