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Walden requests air tanker funds His letter to the House committee notes that county, state and Forest Service officials say keeping two bases open will benefit firefighting By PAUL FATTIG U.S. Rep. Greg Walden has requested that $1.35 million be earmarked for the Medford air tanker base in the federal budget for fiscal year 2002. In a letter sent to the House Appropriations Committee chairman on Thursday, Walden, a Hood River Republican who represents the 2nd Congressional District, asked for $1.2 million for upgrading the facility as well as an additional $150,000 to continue current operations. Citing the need to cut costs, the Forest Service announced a year ago that it planned to close the base, moving the operations to Klamath Falls. Local officials, led by Jackson County Commissioner Jack Walker, balked at the announced closure. Retaining the base would save much more in fire destruction than the $1 million annually the agency had planned in savings, they argued. Forest Service officials said funding availability limits southwestern Oregon to one air tanker base. The agency's National Air Tanker Base study completed in 1996 concluded that the Klamath Falls base is the best choice for a regional base. But Regional Forester Harv Forsgren extended the date when base dismantling was to begin from Feb. 1 to March 15. That decision came after several meetings involving agency personnel, Jackson and Josephine county officials, and representatives of Walden, U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio and U.S. Sens. Gordon Smith and Ron Wyden. In his letter to the agency, Walden noted that his Oregon colleagues unanimously agree the Medford base should not close. Moreover, he wrote, the Forest Service's own studies concluded keeping both the Medford and Klamath Falls tanker bases open was the most efficient way to fight fires in the region. "The continuation of operations of the Medford tanker base is of vital importance to maintaining the current level of protection of lives and property in south-central Oregon," he wrote. As an example, he observed that the Quartz fire in the Little Applegate River drainage last August had been projected to burn up to 22,000 acres. The fire was contained to some 6,000 acres, largely because of tankers flying out of Medford, he maintained. The savings in fire suppression costs alone was $28.8 million, he wrote. The appropriations request, if approved by Congress later this year, clears a major hurdle, Walker said Friday. "This is very good news - we've all agreed that it's a money issue, not a feasibility issue," Walker said. "It shows that we have more than proved our point to maintain both bases, Klamath Falls and Medford, to deal with the firefighting needs here," he added. Keeping the base open will save millions in the long run, Walker said. "It's one of those no-brainers that somehow got routed through the federal system," he said. "We should be adding fire prevention (ability), not reducing it." If the Medford base were to close permanently, the agency planned to operate the dispatch center at the base for another year, then transfer it to the Bureau of Land Management's Medford District headquarters on Biddle Road. The old base would not be used as a reloading base for tankers, officials said. Its closure would leave tanker bases in Klamath Falls, Redmond and La Grande in Oregon, Redding in California and Moses Lake in Washington. Tankers from the Medford base, which opened in the late 1950s, have traditionally covered the Cascade Range to the coast, and from Roseburg south just beyond Yreka, Calif. Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.