US Military Reducing its Puerto Rico Presence

No Longer a 'Hub'

by John Lindsay-Poland

In the wake of the closure of the bombing range in Vieques, the Navy is relocating or closing 14 commands on the huge Roosevelt Roads Naval Station in eastern Puerto Rico. The Pentagon announced in April that 1,935 out of 2,334 soldiers will be moved out of the base by October 2004, in addition to 488 private contractors and 349 civilian jobs. The reduction leads many observers to believe that Congress, which has the final say, will include Roosevelt Roads in the round of base closures planned for 2005.

Added to the closure of the Vieques bombing range, the closure last year of the 2,200-acre naval base in Sabana Seca, and the move of the US Army South from Fort Buchanan in Puerto Rico to Texas, the reduction in Roosevelt Roads caps a large transfer of US military facilities off of the island. It represents a sea change from 1998, when the US Southern Command trumpeted Puerto Rico as the new "hub" of its military operations for Latin America.

Signs of the Roosevelt Roads reduction appeared in January after the Navy certified its departure from Vieques, when Atlantic Fleet Admiral Robert Natter told reporters that "without Vieques there is no way I need the Navy facilities at Roosevelt Roads - none. It's a drain on Defense Department and taxpayer dollars."

The Atlantic Fleet Weapons Training Facility includes four ranges: the "inner range" on eastern Vieques; an underwater mining range of the island waters; an electronic warfare range, also underwater; and an "outer range" which extends over nearly 200,000 square miles of the Caribbean. In a November 2002 memorandum, Natter said he would "pursue every opportunity" to redirect training from all of these ranges to other areas. Natter said the changes would "effectively shut down range operations in Puerto Rico." However, naval officials have also said that submarines come from outside Puerto Rico to train in the area, and that the Pentagon hasn’t yet decided whether training in waters near Vieques will continue. The Special Operations Command South, a Drug Enforcement Administration unit and a naval hospital serving area veterans are also located on Roosevelt Roads.

Several economists said the base closure, even if it were only a partial closure, could be a boon. Lerroy López, president of the Puerto Rican Association of Economists, said the base "is a valuable asset that would be of greater benefit to Puerto Rico under civilian use than under its current military use."

Caribbean Business published an extensive investigation of Roosevelt Roads’ potential development as a major transshipment port. While Puerto Rico has considered Guayanilla and Ponce for such a port, the magazine asserts that Roosevelt Roads "is infinitely better than either alternative if we are to development a transshipment port with a vision towards what will be required not today, but 25 to 50 years into the future." The magazine points out that the base already has hundreds of workers experienced in dock and ship repair, and that as a military base it would not present major environmental impact issues.

Residents of Aguadilla, near the Ramey Air Base that closed in 1975, agree that the local economy can thrive when a base closes - if the community and local government cooperate in planning. "The community and mayor should organize... The people need to pressure and go to the courts if necessary," advised community leader Luis Rubén Rosario.

Many of Ramey's facilities lie in disuse, subject to vandalism. But even a poorly used converted base can bring more jobs than a military base: compared to 865 people employed by the base in 1973, there are 2,000 jobs there now.

Pro-independence legislator Fernando Martin filed a resolution in the Puerto Rican Senate in favor of the closure, saying that the experience of Panama and the Philippines shows that base closures increase income.

Some are skeptical

Gerardo Cruz Maldonado, mayor of nearby Ceiba, has publicly opposed the base closure, claiming it will "create economic and social chaos." Yet Cruz told FOR two years ago that "the Navy has retarded our socioeconomic development. If the base closes, bienvenido. We won't die of hunger."

Others, including journalist Marta Villaizán, contest the claim made by some that the closure of Roosevelt Roads is a done deal, citing contracts for construction on the base and installation of new equipment in the underwater tracking range at St. Croix, near Vieques.

Sources: Associated Press, 1/11/03; Inside the Navy, 2/24/03; El Nuevo Día, 2/13, 2/14, 3/7, 4/15, 5/12/03; San Juan Star, 4/11/03, Caribbean Business, 12/26/02, 1/23/03; El Vocero, 3/12/03; Marta Villaizán, "Se queda Roosevelt Roads," 3/13/03.

Roosevelt Roads Closure Beneficial

By Héctor L. Pesquera

Panic is again spreading among government officials before the possible closure of Roosevelt Roads naval base. The mayor of Ceiba is right when he suggests the city could lose a million dollars in benefits with the closure. This is what the fast food businesses such as Burger King and McDonalds have paid the city for municipal licenses for the last two years. The easiest way to maintain that income is to open the gates of the military base to the people and those businesses could thus continue operating. Has the mayor calculated how much more income those 8,600 acres could generate for the city if their use were transformed for industrial development and tourism?

In reality, the Roosevelt Roads naval base is costing the people of Puerto Rico over a billion dollars a year, according to a study by a special research committee of the Hostosiano National Congress led by urban planner José Rivera Santana, recently named Planner of the Year by Puerto Rico Planners Association.

The study estimates that the creation of close to 20,000 jobs in the eastern part of the country is being lost as a result of the military occupation of the 8,600 acres of land in Ceiba. Nearly 10,000 jobs could be generated directly and another 10,000 jobs indirectly. The economic impact exceeds 500 million dollars annually, doubling the economic injection of $250 million that the military claims to contribute to the region. The base has an airport with a landing strip 11,000 feet long, has port facilities with nine piers prepared to receive transatlantic ships in deep water. Roosevelt Roads is a unique and ideal place for the establishment of a large industrial high-tech park and transshipment port, such as is sought for the city of Ponce. But tourism, residences and businesses can also be established there that, together, would convert eastern Puerto Rico in a region of intense economic development.

The experience of the United States and other countries of the world tells us it is wrong to argue that the closure of military bases would negatively affect the economy. On the contrary, the transformation from military to civilian uses of military bases always has resulted in an enormous economic and social benefit where it has occurred. In the United States itself, the planning literature recounts specific cases of great significance. For example, in a hundred cases studied by the federal government, the closure of military bases and their conversion to civilian uses yields, on average, an increase of at least one and a half jobs for each job lost to the base closure (Urban Land, 1993). There are individual cases, such as the Charlestown naval base in Boston, which generated 16,000 new jobs after its closure and conversion to civilian uses.