Encroachment: where national security, land use, and the environment collide

Army Lawyer, July, 2006 by Ryan Santicola

Introduction

Sprawl is a phenomenon with wide-ranging implications for urban and suburban populations. One of the many definitions for sprawl includes "low-density development on the edges of cities and towns that is poorly planned, land-consumptive, automobile-dependent [and] designed without regard to its surroundings." (1) Development away from the city center to the fringes of metropolitan areas began in earnest during the twentieth century, accelerating markedly in the later decades. (2) Attracted to the apparent comforts and ease of suburban living as opposed to the "corruption and density" of the city, Americans began an "exurban migration." (3)

As the urban area expanded from the metropolitan center to pastures and woodlands once on the distant horizon, lands that saw little or no development on the outskirts of cities were now being targeted for suburban development. (4) A natural consequence of developing once rural land was a depletion of the country's natural resources. (5) This spatial expansion caused by urban sprawl bred dependence upon automobiles for transportation, driving up both fuel consumption and traffic congestion. (6) Yet, notwithstanding the seemingly self-destructive nature of sprawl, "suburbanization and sprawl" are realities of modern land use. (7)

This article considers another effect of urban sprawl: the encroachment of urban and suburban populations upon military installations, (8) particularly training ranges. (9) The Department of Defense (DOD) (10) uses the term "encroachment" to describe "the cumulative result of any and all outside influences that inhibit normal military training and testing." (11) According to the DOD, the eight encroachment issues of concern are "urban growth around military installations" and training ranges, radio frequency interference, "air pollution [and] noise pollution," airspace interference, unexploded munitions, and "endangered species habitat and protected marine resources." (12) The military identified urban sprawl as the primary source of encroachment in the United States and believes it will continue to present the greatest challenge in the future. (13)

The source of this encroachment is not simply an expansion of urban centers. Originally, military installations were located in isolated areas because of the abundant supply of open land needed to provide adequate defense training and security. (14) In addition to the natural trend of urban sprawl, military installations offered employment opportunities and created the need for goods and services that attracted people and businesses closer to military sites. (15) The attraction of workers and service providers to the installations eventually created family communities, and before long, the urban area reached the training ranges. (16) With such growth came the realization that "[i]ncompatible residential and commercial development patterns surrounding military bases can jeopardize an installation's mission." (17)

This article examines incompatible land uses related to encroachment and the remedies employed by both the military and civilian communities. Part I discusses the problem of urban sprawl around military installations to lay a foundational understanding of encroachment. Part It looks at measures taken by the military to ameliorate the encroachment problem, focusing particularly on collaborative planning efforts between military officials and state and local planning officials, in addition to the General Accounting Office's (GAO) recommendation that the DOD develop a comprehensive plan to address encroachment on military installations. Part III examines the approaches taken by a number of state governments to combat encroachment. Finally, Part IV briefly considers why encroachment is an important issue for both military and civilian officials alike.

I. Encroachment: What Is It?

To accomplish its mission of defending and protecting the United States in armed conflict, the military must train and prepare soldiers in an environment as simulative of war as possible. (18) "[W]ithout realistic combat training, particularly training with live ordnance, [the military is] unable to adequately prepare [its] young men and women for the operations and potential combat service which they may be required to perform in service to this Nation." (19) To conduct such training, some examples of the "[r]equired facilities include air ranges for air-to-air, air-to-ground, drop zone, and electronic combat training; live-fire ranges for artillery, armor, small arms, and munitions training; ground maneuver ranges to conduct realistic force-on-force and live-fire training at various unit levels: and sea ranges to conduct ship maneuvers for training." (20) Needless to say, a large portion of the military's training occurs on various types of terrain. Thus, vast, uninhabited land permits the development and maintenance of a military force equipped with the skills necessary to perform its mission under challenging and often life-threatening conditions. (21)