Lawmaker expects Monroe facility to escape military cuts.
U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum predicted Friday that the Tobyhanna Army Depot will survive the next round of base
closings, but said other military facilities throughout Pennsylvania may not fare as well, particularly the Willow Grove air
base near Philadelphia.
''We are going to have some good news and bad news stories,'' said Santorum, R-Pa., after a tour of Tobyhanna
in a show of support for the 4,200 workers there.
Santorum's visit came a month before the recently appointed Base Realignment and Closure commission will
present its recommendations for those bases to be closed, realigned or expanded.
As many as 100 military bases throughout the country will be shuttered, the highest number ever and more
than the four previous closures combined.
A Blue Ribbon Task Force of political, business and community leaders has worked for two years to build
support for Tobyhanna, and Santorum said recent conversations with Pentagon officials have left him with no doubts that Tobyhanna
will remain open.
''I don't think there's any question from everything I'm hearing that the Depot is in very good shape. I
anticipate Tobyhanna will not only survive, but we'll see work migrate and expand. There is no question in my mind that Tobyhanna
will grow,'' said Santorum, who faces re-election next year.
Tobyhanna, off Interstate 380 in Monroe County, produces a variety of specialized equipment, from hand-held
radios to satellite communications, as part of the Army's Communications-Electronics Command.
Depot employees are drawn from a nine-county area, along with New York and New Jersey, and earn an average
of $42,000 per year. Santorum praised those workers for producing equipment he said was a ''vital part of our success in Iraq.''
''These are folks here that put high-tech equipment in the hands of our fighters,'' he said.
While Tobyhanna could survive, Santorum said he was less bullish on other bases throughout Pennsylvania,
particularly the Willow Grove Naval Air Station in Horsham Township, Montgomery County.
Unlike Tobyhanna, which enjoys a rural setting with plenty of room for expansion, the Willow Grove
base is plagued by outside development, something that Santorum described as a red flag in the eyes of military analysts and
the BRAC commission.
''Willow Grove has an encroachment problem, which puts them in the firing line,'' Santorum said.
U.S. Rep. Allyson Schwartz, D-Pa., whose 13th District includes Willow Grove, questioned Santorum's comments
and wondered where he received his information, given the base closing process is supposed to be closed until the
recommendations are released to the public by May 16.
''I've been working with the governor's office and have taken a leadership role for base closings in Pennsylvania,
and the senator has information that I don't have and the public doesn't have and the governor doesn't have,'' Schwartz said.
Willow Grove serves as a naval and joint reserve air base and is home for 6,200 personnel, reservists and
active duty, and 600 civilians. The base generates about $380 million in direct and indirect economic activity, Schwartz said.
By contrast, Tobyhanna is estimated to generate $1 billion in regional economic activity, and Santorum's
prediction that the base would remain open assuaged fears of many of the local officials in attendance...
