“Since you have not had the required 40 hours of HazMat training, you will not be allowed to walk around the sites during the tour.” Those were the first words we heard from the Army's tour guide as we began our tour.

One need not walk around to quickly to realize that there are lots of “blast-hardened” reinforced concrete buildings remaining on the proposed campus. Buildings may not be the correct term. Perhaps partial structures better describes what we saw. Take a look at the attached photographs to get the picture.

Anyone in the construction industry will tell you that the removal of reinforced concrete structures takes lots of time and cost lots of money. Development of raw agricultural land is much cheaper. If a company located to this site they could not afford to remove these structures. That would make for a very different looking campus.

During our tour we saw lots of these structures. What we did not see is infrastructure to support industrial development. No electrical, no water, no gas – is just does not exist.

Installing this infrastructure is not cheap. If you don't believe me ask MEDCO. They have spent lots of money on a partially-filled industrial park in Marshall.

As we drove off the reservation I asked myself, “Why would any clean industry that offers good paying jobs ever want to locate to this campus?” That answer is easy – they would not.

The second question was more difficult. I asked myself, “Why someone would have proposed putting an industrial park at this location?”

So far I have come up with three possible answers –

1. These are well meaning individuals that have the good of the community at heart but they have been misled. They did not know what the campus looked like and no one explained the industrial site selection process to them. While well meaning, they made a poor recomendation based on bad data.
2. They are dumb. They don't realize that no company that can offer good paying job and pay lots of taxes would ever seriously consider locating on this campus.
3. They are very smart. They are cleverly using this industrial park proposal as a smokescreen for grabbing the Army's water rights.

I am sure there must be other answers. I just can't think of them. Can you help me?

While you are thinking, take a look at the photos by clicking below. Also tell-a-friend. They may help you come up with an answer.