PDA

View Full Version : Acting SecNav, Puerto Rico delegate meet to discuss Roosevelt Roads’ future



thedrifter
09-05-03, 05:58 AM
September 04, 2003

Acting SecNav, Puerto Rico delegate meet to discuss Roosevelt Roads’ future

By Pauline Jelinek
Associated Press


Puerto Rico’s delegate to Congress met Wednesday with Pentagon officials to talk about possible future uses for the Navy’s Roosevelt Roads base in the event the installation is closed.
Officials declined to give further details about the discussion between Anibal Acevedo Vila and acting Navy Secretary Hansford T. Johnson and members of his staff.

The base has not officially been designated for closing, but a directive to auction off the land has been included in the House’s proposed defense appropriations bill for the next budget year, defense officials said. In any case, the Navy has said it will shut down most activities there, now that it is no longer using the nearby island of Vieques for training.

The naval station has been one of the largest employers in Puerto Rico, contributing an estimated $250 million a year to the economy. The Navy has used Vieques as its main Atlantic Coast training range for more than 50 years, but long-simmering protests grew in the U.S. Caribbean territory in 1999 when an off-target bomb killed a civilian guard on the firing range.

Puerto Rican officials say the base area is important to the region’s economic development and facilities no longer needed by the Navy could be put to a number of uses, including by other federal tenants.

Roosevelt Roads has been home to the commander of U.S. Naval Forces Southern Command, a Navy hospital and many other Navy facilities. President Franklin Roosevelt ordered the base built in 1940 and it was used for World War II naval operations.

As for Vieques, which the Navy left four months ago, the 15,587 acres will be transferred to the Department of the Interior, not to Puerto Rico. A 900-acre section near the eastern tip of the island where live bombs were dropped will be declared off-limits indefinitely because of hazards.






--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright 2003 The Associated Press.

http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-2186534.php


Sempers,

Roger
:marine: