WESTFIELD – Airport Manager Brian Barnes and leaders of the Air National Guard 104th Fighter Wing appeared before the City Council last night to discuss the need to increase security at the military base located on the city’s airport.
Barnes said the officials were giving the council advanced notice that the Massachusetts Air National Guard has approached the Airport Commission about leasing another 25 acres of land and that the City Council will have to approve that lease because it will be longer than 20 years.
The Barnes Regional Airport Commission has the authority to enter into lease agreements of up to 20 years. The guard recently signed a 99-year lease and the legal agreement for the 25 acres would have to fall in line with that lease.
Barnes said that the 104th Fighter Wing is a major economic generator for the region and Barnes Regional Airport where 1,300 of the 1,900 jobs at the airport are in the ANG Fighter Wing. Barnes said that the federal government has allocated $27 million in recent improvements to the city’s airport because of the Fighter Wing base.
Col. Jim Keefe, 104th commander, and Col Pete Green, the wings vice commander, said the US Air Force, (which was established Sept. 18, 1947 and is celebrating its 68th “birthday” today) increased security requirements following the 1996 Khobar Tower terrorist bombing in Saudi Arabia which claimed the lives of 19 American servicemen and wounded 372 men and women of the armed forces.
Keefe said that the Air Force increased security to prevent a similar bombing incident in which a vehicle was packed with explosive and detonated in front of the eight-story US Air Force dormitory. Keefe said that the current security standards require that security gates have a substantial “standoff distance” from base facilities.
“The gate we have now is very close to our facilities,” Keefe said.
The present main gate is located near the end of Falcon Drive and is in close proximity of building. The request to add the 25 acres to the base would allow construction of a new security gate off Southampton Road.
Keefe said the $4.4 million gate project would include installation of a traffic light on Southampton Road and construction of a serpentine road from Southampton Road to the gate to allow stacking of vehicles waiting to be cleared for entry onto the base.
Green said that when he first joined the 104th, security was just a chain-link fence “with a broken lock. The world has changed. Terrorism has come to our door.”
Green, who headed the base security program in the past, said that the Air Force has identified vehicle explosive devices as a major threat and has established new security standards to prevent a repeat of the Khobar attack.
“The unified facilities criterion was put into place following the Khobar Tower attack,” Green said. “The present gate was not designed for the threat we face today, it does not have the standoff distance from critical facilities that is now required.”
“Every critical facility at the 104th is right along the main road,” Green said. “The 25 acres of land will be used to improve force protection.
Both Keefe and Green said that base security and force protection are critical factors examined by the Base Closure & Realignment Commission (BRAC) and that construction of the new gate will affect that BRAC review.
Barnes said that the projected timeline will be for the Airport Commission to send a modification of the lease, with the 25 acres added to that document, to the City Council, which also has to be reviewed and approved by state and federal officials.
“We hope to see that before Thanksgiving,” Barnes said.
