Endorsements and editorials are made solely by the ownership of this newspaper. As is the case at most newspapers across the nation, The Spokesman-Review newsroom and its editors are not a part of this endorsement process. (Learn more.)
Editorial: Fairchild’s future must be No. 1 for area officials
Release of the draft environmental impact study for the proposed Spokane Tribe casino development moves the complex, multitrack reviews of that project, and an almost certainly incompatible upgrade of Fairchild Air Force Base, into a crucial phase.
The stakes are as high as they can be for the Spokane area’s economic future.
The Spokane Tribe wants to build a $400 million casino, hotel and retail complex on 145 acres facing U.S. Highway 2 and adjacent to Airway Heights. Slightly more than 2,800 jobs would be created when the project is fully built out. Two alternatives, one with no casino, would provide fewer jobs.
There is no question jobs will be lost at the Kalispel Tribe’s Northern Quest Resort and Casino if the Spokane Tribe’s project is built.
One mile west of the Spokane Tribe’s site, Fairchild employs 5,700 military and civilian personnel who staff or support the U.S. Air Force and Air National Guard units flying KC-135 tankers, among the most antiquated pieces of equipment in the U.S. arsenal. In 2016, the Air Force will begin replacing those airplanes with the KC-46A, larger planes that will necessitate significant investment at their future bases.
State and local political leaders have organized a full-court press to assure some of those tankers are parked at Fairchild. If not, at some point the base’s reason for being might be questioned, especially as the military downsizes. Their main concern is encroachment, one of the criteria used in past reviews of military installations. Bases hemmed in by nearby developments were closed.
Fairchild commander Col. Paul Guemmer discusses the definitions of “encroachment” on the opposite page. Appropriately, he takes no position on whether the Spokane Tribe’s project would be a problem. But the words “impair or potentially impair the current or future operational capabilities” are troubling, as are “incompatible development,” taken from the Fairchild Joint Land Use Study.
Spokane County commissioners will hold a hearing on that document Thursday. A hearing on the draft environmental impact study is scheduled for March 26. The final EIS goes to the secretary of the Interior, who must determine whether the project would be beneficial to the tribe and not detrimental to the surrounding community. Gov. Chris Gregoire, or her successor, must also consent.
Meanwhile, the Air Force is compiling the criteria it will use to select bases for the new tanker. Candidates will be reviewed in April. Recommendations to the secretary of the Air Force are due in June.
Fairchild must be on that list. Period. The criteria adopted by the Air Force, not the final casino development EIS, must be the controlling document for local, state and federal officials reviewing the Spokane Tribe’s project. If the mitigation measures for noise, light, glare and other hazards to aviation do not satisfy the Pentagon, the tribe will have to downsize its plans.
The community cannot allow anything to jeopardize all it has invested in its long partnership with Fairchild, the men and women who serve there, and the thousands who have served in the past.