Tuesday, May 29, 2007 • Supes visit Sierra Army Depot

Publisher’s note: This story originally appeared in the Tuesday, May 29, 2007 edition of the Lassen County Times.

The Lassen County Board of Supervisors traded their usual boardroom for a military installation for their regular meeting at 9 a.m. on Tuesday, May 22.

The meeting started like every other at the Lassen County Clerk’s office at 707 Nevada St. but eventually adjourned at about 10 a.m. so the board and its staff could reconvene at the Skedaddle Inn in Herlong, just outside the entrance to the Sierra Army Depot.

After reconvening and informally discussing a few more agenda items, Lt. Col. Brian Butler, the top military official at the depot, came in to introduce himself to the board.

Butler outlined the activities for the day, first giving a brief overview of what the purpose of the depot was and how it fit into Lassen County.

“Believe it or not, in your county, you have the largest concentration of combat vehicles anywhere in the world,” Butler said “You will see a lot of these armored vehicles for yourself as we tour the base. You will also see our trailer reset program, where we take trailers from camps, post and installations all over the United States, Southeast Asia, Europe and Korea and rebuild them for the Army.

“It doesn’t sound real exciting,” Butler said, “but it’s interesting when you see how we and the citizens of this county have been able to convert 1942-era buildings into a production line for rebuilding trailers. It won’t look like General Motors, but it works well.”

Butler said the depot reconditions and ships out about 40 trailers a month through this program.

Another program he said the board would see in action was the creation of trailers and equipment from excess equipment sent back to the U.S. from wartime scenarios.

Parts and equipment that have essentially outlived their original purpose can come back to the depot and be broken down and recycled back into trailers or other parts, through the efforts of the depot.

Butler said on average the depot saves the U.S. Army about $53 million a month in cost avoidance through the multiple functions of the depot. Butler explained that in past wars, it was common practice for the military to simply discard much of its used equipment, such as in the Vietnam War or the first Gulf War.

Butler said the depot was the only installation in the Army that serves this type of recycling function, and it’s expected to grow.

“Basically, you’re looking at a $200 million-a-year business,” Butler said. “And it’s not going anywhere anytime soon.”

After his introduction, the board had lunch at the Skedaddle Inn, and then hopped on a bus for their tour of the facilities. Since the entire depot spans more than 35,000 acres, the tour only covered a fraction of the actual space.

The tour of some of the older and newer facilities lasted from about 11 a.m. to 2:15 p.m. Butler and his staff played the unofficial role of tour guide for the board, pointing out areas of interest as the bus rode at a steady pace throughout the installation.

Occasionally, the tour would stop and everyone would get out of the bus to do a quick walkthrough of some of the production facilities, getting a closer look at some of the areas and details that Butler had spoken of when he introduced himself.

Butler and his staff were knowledgeable and attentive, quick to answer every question they could while still being able to show the board many of the depot’s nuances.

The tour eventually wrapped up around 2:15 p.m. back at the Skedaddle Inn. After expressing gratitude to Butler and his staff for taking the time to show them the depot, the board reconvened for about 20 minutes to discuss the last few items on the agenda before adjourning for the week.

Board Chairman Brian Dahle said the board had talked about coming down to the depot for a while to get a visual on some of the items they had talked about in past meetings.

One of the reasons for the board meeting at SIAD in the first place was for them to convene as the Local Reuse Authority and discuss an exclusive agenda item.

The depot wanted to talk about leasing the dining facilities and the barracks located there for private use, but Butler said at the beginning of the day that the depot didn’t have enough information to discuss that item until later.

“It’s good for the board to actually be down here,” Dahle said. “We’ve been working for years on getting some of the things we saw today up and running, to help revitalize the area. You can talk about it, you can watch PowerPoint presentations and videos, but to actually get on the ground and see it is great. I learned a lot.”