05-09-08: Marine Corps growth expected sooner

(c) New Bern Sun Journal

By Sue Book, Staff Writer

JACKSONVILLE -- Marine Corps growth in the region is coming two years sooner than expected.

The Marine Corps expansion was expected to add 11,477 new military-related jobs by 2011. But members of the Military Growth Task Force were advised this week that the growth will come by 2009.

The task force was formed to help local governments cope with the population increase associated with the ramp-up. It  plans to ask for state help to get ready.

Its members learned about the accelerated schedule at their meeting in Jacksonville on Wednesday.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates told military leaders last week about the faster build-up, the military publication Stars and Stripes reported.  The growth is part of a national  initiative to expand the Marine Corps to a force of 202,000.

That growth - with the families, related service industry, and normal expansion - is expected to add as many as 78,000 new people to the 7,000-square-mile area around Camp Lejeune, Cherry Point and New River by 2011. The total growth projection is based on calculations by the federal Office of Economic Adjustment.

"These numbers are like adding a new city to the region larger than any one already here," said Sonny Roberts, task force vice chairman. "And the Marines will be here by the end of next year. We're already behind the power curve on this to provide for them."

 The 21-member task force plans to ask the North Carolina General Assembly for as much as $100 million in state help. The task force also plans to  encourage a bond referendum for education and water and sewer infrastructure and to urge the state to speed up funding and work on highway projects in the area.

An executive director hired last month to coordinate planning and help find money to for counties and cities to prepare left quickly because of health reasons.

Roberts said the executive committee plans to interview new candidates next week.

The task force had expected to hear this week about its $1.57 million grant application to the federal Office of Economic Adjustment but now expect news in about two weeks. The $100,000 used to set up the task force, lease a Jacksonville office suite, and pay for personnel soon to be hired came from North Carolina's Eastern Region, which will be the oversight agency for management and grants.

At Wednesday's meeting, Roberts said, the group focused on lists of infrastructure needs, primarily water and sewer and highway construction, in the counties of Craven, Pamlico, Jones, Onslow, Carteret, Pender and Duplin.

The group whittled down a wider list to projects costing a total of about $400 million for water and sewer projects and $300 million to $400 million for highways, Roberts said.

The task force also determined that it would work to build a cooperative network with the 11-county Base Realignment and Closure Commission Regional Task Force doing similar planning for the 2013 U.S. Army expansion around Fort Bragg.