Officials tout proposed military site expansion

A proposed land exchange announced Thursday would facilitate a $105 million expansion at the Indiana National Guard’s Camp Atterbury, increasing soldier-training capacity by the thousands and bringing hundreds of jobs to the state, officials said.

Gov. Mitch Daniels, the National Guard and the Department of Natural Resources announced the proposal at the military base near Edinburgh.

The plan calls for the DNR to release about 1,200 acres of the state’s 6,200 Atterbury Fish and Wildlife Area to the National Guard. In exchange, the DNR would receive about 2,100 acres of state prison system land near Putnamville to develop into a new wildlife area. The remaining Atterbury wildlife area acres would remain open to the public, said 1st Lt. Jessica Halladay, a Camp Atterbury spokesperson.

The National Guard will use the new land to expand its rail system, as well as construct offices, training complexes, new barracks and a day care center. The expansion would reduce travel time for soldiers and allow families to stay together during training, Halladay said.

“We’re happy to bring some of these guys in who have been training with us and have been having to travel back and forth to their active duty locations,” she said. “It will be a neat opportunity for soldiers to stay and bring their families back with them so they’re not away from them for six months during training.”

The Camp Atterbury expansion will increase the base’s training capacity from 4,000 to 7,000 soldiers. It also will allow the U.S. Military to send 10 Brigade Combat teams to Atterbury and Muscatatuck, the base’s urban combat training center, each year. It currently sends three to four a year, according to the Indiana National Guard.

The economic benefits would reach beyond the 800 permanent jobs construction on the base would bring, Daniels said. The U.S. Army allocates $3 million to $5 million to cover the cost of food, fuel and supplies for each brigade it sends to Camp Atterbury, said Indiana National Guard spokesperson Joanna Bryant-Caplette.

The proposal would also increase the amount of outdoor recreational land in the state by about 800 acres.

“We see surveys on a national scale that show that one of the leading reasons why people drop out of hunting and fishing is because they don’t have a place to go,” DNR spokesperson Phil Bloom said. “So anytime that we are able to provide a new opportunity — and especially in this case, where it would be an increase in acreage available for public use — it is a positive in our eyes.”

The Putnamville site’s rolling hills, woodlands, fishing stream and Blue Heron habitat make it a more diverse wildlife area than the portion of the Atterbury site designated for the expansion, Bloom said.

The land exchange could happen as early as this fall, pending an environmental impact assessment and approval by both the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and the National Park Service. The public will be able to weigh in on the proposal at two late-April meetings.

Daniels said boosting Indiana’s economy and bolstering the state’s contribution to national defense while adding a new wildlife habitat makes the land exchange a win-win.

“Today is a huge step forward,” he said. “We outlined all the reasons that this is important economically. It’s a great conservation story as we add to the land we’re protecting for the future. I really think the sky is the limit.”