|
Just west of Flagstaff sits Camp Navajo that just might be Arizona’s best kept secret according to State Representative Bob Thorpe.
Its name and mission have changed since World War II when it was used as a storage facility for ammo and other forms of support for the men and women fighting across the Pacific theater, but its value to Arizona remains unchanged.
Currently a discussion is taking place as to whether the plot of land should be expanded in order to expand its services to the military and the National Guard itself.
Thorpe recently visited the Camp to discuss the proposal to add around 800 more acres of land to the base footprint in order to allow more types of training exercises.
“It’s one of Arizona’s best kept secrets. The way they are running it right now is interesting. They are doing work for the Air Force and Navy. It is a state facility owned by the State of Arizona. The National Guard is running it but they have private contractors running the storage of it. It is self-sustaining; meaning the State of Arizona makes money off it,” Thorpe explained in a recent interview James T. Harris radio show. “We are not paying for that facility and it is paying the state. And the money goes into the general budget. For example, they have taken some of these 1940’s bunkers and they have gone in and put in new floors and you have this absolutely flat, pristine floor where you can then use a jack for moving heavy objects around but on air power. These jacks will float a Titan Missile Rocket assembly on a curtain of air as they move it around inside this facility. They store these engines there; they store jet engines that go into the F-22 fighter jet.”
The base currently holds and trains around 150 military police year-round and it provides many members of the National Guard and military a place to train and maintain their certification while escaping the dangerous heat of Tucson and Phoenix. Many operations bring canine units as well to train them in their duties including being able to sniff out specific contraband that is masked in not only desert and arid locations, but in the dense forest and foliage surroundings that the northern part of Arizona can provide. Even with all those military and official uses at the base, the current plans for expansion could also open up the door for industrial businesses to gravitate to Arizona by using their storage capabilities.
“They are talking about non-military applications as well where industry might want to store things. Let’s say you have chemicals that are important for industry but are somewhat volatile and you need a place that is somewhere remote and climate controlled environment that you can store them. That could be an application. So I think that the folks that are running the facility are looking forward to the opportunities,” said Thorpe.