Fairchild Wins, Ag Station Loses In Budget Plan Air Base Would Get Operations Building; Nothing Budgeted For Prosser Facility

The federal government would spend about $11.6 million on construction projects at Fairchild Air Force Base, but nothing at an agriculture research station in Prosser, Wash., if President Clinton gets his way.

While the construction programs at Fairchild received general support from the state’s congressional delegation, House Republicans said they would fight to keep money for the research station.

Details of Clinton’s fiscal 1999 budget show that the West Plains air base is in line for a new, $7.6 million squadron operations building.

That would be the fourth such facility added at the base in as many years, to handle the increase in KC-135 tanker squadrons at Fairchild.

The Clinton budget also proposes spending $1.7 million on a new building for the office, which oversees about 600 houses for military personnel on the base.

Fred Zitterkopf of the base civil engineering office said the new structure would replace several World War II-era warehouses that are used by the staff that assigns and maintains houses.

The Air Force would also spend $2.3 million to finish the 11-year project to upgrade base houses, many of which were built in the 1950s. Since 1988, Fairchild has removed or replaced 958 houses.

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., called Clinton’s budget a “good start” for military construction in the state, which has one of the highest concentration of Army, Navy and Air Force facilities in the nation. But Fairchild is the only base that will be getting new housing, she said.

“The Department of Defense seems intent on neglecting the daily needs of our service personnel,” she said.

Murray, the ranking Democrat on the Senate panel that oversees military construction, said she hopes to add money for child care and education when the budget is reviewed.

Republican Reps. George Nethercutt and Doc Hastings criticized the administration for again trying to eliminate federal money for the Prosser Irrigated Agriculture Research Center, which studies potatoes, peas and lentils.

The center, operated by Washington State University, received $2.7 million from the federal government, about half its overall budget.

The Agriculture Department proposed a similar cut last year, but Congress restored the funding. Nethercutt accused the administration of cutting money for research to add money for food and nutrition programs, which are scheduled for an increase.

“We’ll put all that back in,” said Nethercutt, who sits on the House agriculture appropriations subcommittee.

, DataTimes