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Oink! Yuma projects zinged as pork
BY JEFFREY GAUTREAUX, SUN STAFF WRITER
Published on: April 6, 2006

For the second straight year, the Yuma Crossing National Heritage Area has been labeled as pork.

Citizens Against Government Waste, a taxpayer watchdog group, said the $350,000 allocated to the project for fiscal year 2006 was an example of pork-barrel spending. For the uninitiated, "pork" means homestate and home district projects, specially set aside, often as earmarks, in congressional spending measures, chiefly the 11 annual appropriations bills.

An $8.1 million free fall simulator to be built at the Yuma Proving Ground and used by U.S. Army special operations units, which was included in the initial federal budget but not actually funded or built, was also included in the Pig Book, which was released Wednesday.

Charles Flynn, executive director of the Heritage Area in Yuma, said he would like to see CGAW’s definition of pork because he is at a loss to explain why the project, which was authorized by an act of Congress, makes the book nearly every year. Flynn said of the 27 heritage areas in the country, the president authorized $13.5 million to go to them and each of the 27 received a specified amount in the budget.

"How is that an earmark?" he said.

The anti-pork group has a broad definition of what constitutes pork. Anything not specifically requested by President Bush automatically qualifies.

YPG spokesman Chuck Wullenjohn said building a simulator at YPG has been discussed for many years because even at such a high price tag, the U.S. Army feels it would save money.

Currently, the only simulator the Army has is at Fort Bragg, N.C. Wullenjohn said as many as 1,000 students who take courses at the Military Freefall School each year at YPG must be shuttled to Fort Bragg for a week to use the simulator and then brought back to Arizona.

"From what I know, (having a simulator at YPG) will save the U.S. government in the long run," he said. "It wouldn’t take long to pass the break-even point."

The simulator is a vertical wind tunnel with a large fan that allows students to "practice parachuting without actually parachuting," Wullenjohn said.

The simulator will likely be proposed again in the future. If funded, Wullenjohn said it would be a big improvement over the old unit at Fort Bragg.

According to the CAGW Web site, Yuma projects included in past Pig Books include the Heritage Area receiving $400,000 in 2005; the East Wetlands receiving $500,000 in 2005, the Heritage Area receiving $210,000 in 2004; and the East Wetlands receiving $300,000 in 2000. Projects at Marine Corps Air Station Yuma have also been included in the past.

Flynn makes no apologies for money spent on Gateway Park, the East Wetlands and other Heritage Area projects, saying they are done efficiently. He said he was happy to get the funding and appreciative of the senators and representatives who worked to get it.

"I dare those (CGAW) people to come here to see what we’re doing," he said.

Flynn said the Yuma Heritage Area regularly receives less funding than the average heritage area and overmatches its federal funding with local monies and state and federal grants at rates of 10 or 12 to one.


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Jeffrey Gautreaux can be reached at jgautreaux@yumasun.com or 539-6858.
Information from The Associated Press was included in this story.



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