Letter to John McHugh, Secretary of the Army and General Raymond T. Odierno, Chief of Staff, United States Army - Ft. Riley and Ft. Leavenworth Critical to National Military Strategy and Kansas

Letter

Dear Mr. Secretary and General Odierno,

We appreciate your consideration of our comments on the Army's Supplemental Programmatic Environmental Assessment (SPEA) as it pertains to Fort Riley, Kansas.

Over the last decade, Fort Riley has continued to grow and modernize despite a changing military and shrinking budget. To see the recent success of Fort Riley, one only needs to look at the return of the 1st Infantry Division from Germany in 2006. Since the return of the 1st Infantry Division, Fort Riley has continued to be one of the most deployed units in the Army, and one of the most respected. This was a critical move for the service men and women at Fort Riley, for the base and for the surrounding community. It has provided the state and local communities with economic stability and secured Fort Riley as a major force in the Army for years to come.

Fort Riley and the 1st Infantry Division share a proud history with the United States Army. Today, that relationship continues to evolve with numerous combat deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as developing partnerships in Africa through the 1st Infantry Division's Regionally Aligned Force (RAF) construct under AFRICOM. This emergent mission is of significant importance to the Army. RAF assists African countries in stopping a growing fundamentalist movement across the continent while concurrently developing professional militaries among African countries. By ensuring host nation's ability to provide security, the RAF mission aims to decrease future needs for U.S. forces to mitigate threats in the region.

Fort Riley rests on 159 square miles to provide the Army with over 92,000 acres of usable training area with minimal encroachment issues. This location was designed to provide direct access from the cantonment area to over 72,000 acres of Heavy Maneuver training area, including over 129 miles of tank and maneuver trails, nearly 4,000 acres of light maneuver area, and additional space for training areas. The post is ideally situated with natural barriers to encroachment on three sides, further reducing encroachment in the out years. Terrain conditions support both heavy and light collective training. Additionally, a Memorandum of Understanding with the Kansas National Guard provides an additional 30,000 acres of excellent Maneuver and Joint training acres at the Great Plains Joint Training Center (GPJTC). This training environment enables the Division to conduct live, virtual and constructive training distributed from Fort Riley for an Armored BCT and Infantry BCT simultaneously. Finally, collective efforts with the adjoining communities have resulted in Army Compatible Use Buffer (ACUB) agreements with almost 12,000 acres protected from current or potential future encroachment on Fort Riley.

The Division's Combat Aviation Brigade boasts state of the art facilities and training ranges since its arrival at Fort Riley. The Riley Military Operations Area (MOA) tied to the ADA East & West MOA's provide direct access to the GPJTC training space along with the live fire ranges on Fort Riley proper. Additionally, Fort Riley's ability to conduct Gray Eagle Unmanned Aerials Systems (UAS) operations in the National Airspace is unparalleled in the Army. The Federal Aviation Administration issued a Certificate of Authorization for the Division to fly Gray Eagles UAS's from unrestricted airspace to training areas. As a result, the Division's CAB has the airspace to increase its UAS flights and train pilots with minimal impact to those living near Fort Riley. Additionally, Fort Riley's Mission Training Complex (MTC) is dedicated to leveraging simulation training and has served as a pioneer for training complexes in the Army enterprise wide.

The Division's ability to quickly project power has been demonstrated repeatedly and Fort Riley's position as a power projection platform is without question. The very mature deployment infrastructure includes 13 miles of organic rail track, and direct access to the Union Pacific rail line which passes through Fort Riley and for which a spur is in place to support deployments. The Bob Dole intermodal rail yard has the ability to rail load a Brigade within 36 hours. This is complemented by direct access to I-70 for truck transport and three Aerial Port of Embarkation (APOE) options for the Division. APOEs include Manhattan Regional Airport five miles away which can accommodate C-17 or 737-based flights, Forbes Field 70 miles away which can accommodate the entire Air Mobility Command fleet of aircraft, and Salina Municipal Airport 60 miles away which can accommodate the entire Air Mobility Command fleet. This exceptional deployment capability postures Fort Riley to continue to demonstrate its ability to rapidly project forces supporting the Army "Expeditionary" requirements.

Fort Riley boasts a number of additional impressive deployment capabilities to include:

Two locomotives with one crew on site
Reinforced docks with shock absorbers
Movement Control Center
Control Tower
Three loading docks
Both weigh-in-motion and static weighing facilities

Fort Riley has continued to invest in its future by building new barracks, improving and privatizing housing, and updating training and work areas. Over $1.6 billion in military construction has been invested in Fort Riley since 2005. By utilizing Lean Six Sigma, the Division has reduced costs by $42.7 million since 2010. The Recycling Center alone has generated over $2.2 million in savings for the installation. Additional reductions have included tough decisions to cut civilian strength which resulted in $17.4 million in savings and implementing energy and water cost reduction initiatives recognized by the Army. Further, Kansas has contributed over $7 million to local school districts to ensure military dependents receive a high quality education while road improvements near the installation continue due to $60 million from state and federal funding.

Fort Riley experiences a unique and significant relationship with its community and state governments. This relationship should not be overlooked. Local communities have approved bonding for $32 million dollars for new schools or renovation of current schools. Kansas has assisted the school districts by launching a Second Count Date. If on the Second Count Date a school district has experienced an increase in enrollment of military dependents over anticipated levels, the state will fund the higher level count. Additionally, Fort Riley maintains an extraordinary partnership with Kansas State University and the Combined Arms Center on Fort Leavenworth.

The Army's strong partnership with Kansans has a long and successful history of operation dating back more than a century. Fort Riley's economic impact on the Central Flint Hills Region (CFHR) continues to be substantial. This impact is vital to the success of the local community. Despite Army restructuring and sequestration cuts, Fort Riley provides $1.8 billion in direct economic impact on CFHR, making Fort Riley one of the biggest and most important economic resources in Kansas. However, when using a generally accepted economic multiplier of direct expenditures, Fort Riley's full economic impact would reflect more than $4.1 billion. Governor Sam Brownback has noted that any further reductions in the force or civilian support would have a dramatic and significant impact on the local community and state. During these fiscally challenging times, both local and state commitments to Fort Riley have remained. These investments have been made to ensure the Army's presence in Kansas is fully supported, making Fort Riley's location irreplaceable and invaluable to the Army and the Department of Defense.

These past few years have not been easy for the military community, and the next few will continue to be difficult. However, this is not Fort Riley's first time on the "chopping block" and we have taken our hits in the past. We are immensely proud of the Fort Riley community and hope to continue modernizing and improving Fort Riley to meet the emerging needs of our future military.

We are confident that Fort Riley can not only meet, but exceed any additional challenges at as little cost to the taxpayer as possible. Significant cuts to Fort Riley mean substantial losses to the community, the soldiers and family members at the base and a degradation of a proven effective combat force for the Army. The installation's leadership has taken on the challenge of reducing their operational costs to create a lean operation. Fort Riley has taken all measures to ensure it meets the key factors of evaluation under the SPEA. As the Army weighs its decision, we hope you will agree that Fort Riley currently provides the Army with efficiencies and force structure unlike any other division in the country.

We eagerly wait your assessment of Fort Riley in the SPEA. We appreciate your careful review and thoughtful consideration of this letter. The critical factors identified in this submission, combined with the data collected from Fort Riley for the Army's Military Value Analysis model, will validate that Fort Riley and the 1st Infantry Division are beyond comparison under any calculation. Further reduction at Fort Riley would diminish the Army's global reach in support of our National Military Strategy. As Members of Congress, that is not a risk we are willing to take.