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Community Corner

Report Shows 'Superbase' Has Multi-Billion Dollar Impact on Region

Facility accounts for $3.4 billion of the state's gross domestic product

A massive economic engine keeps on humming behind the barricades and fences around the megabase created from Navy Lakehurst, Fort Dix, and McGuire Air Force Base, according to a new report on its impact in the region.

There are 65,000 private and government jobs at the base, with annual payroll of $1.93 billion, the government study revealed.

Altogether the facility accounts for $3.4 billion of the state’s gross domestic product, generating $118.7 million in state taxes and $119.7 million in local taxes in Ocean, Burlington and Monmouth counties.

“The base remains an important component both in the defense of our nation and in the local economy,’’ said Freeholder Director Joseph H. Vicari after reviewing the report.

It found $428 million in new construction underway at the base at a
time when the economy is in a recession.

The Navy Lakehurst part of the base was nearly shut down by a Base
Realignment And Closure (BRAC) report in the 1990s, a move opposed by county officials and members of Congress. They succeeded in reversing the decision by pointing to the continuing missions at Navy Lakehurst and the cost of shifting them elsewhere.

More recently the county government and U.S. Defense Department have partnered to buy and preserve thousands of acres of land around the megabase to buffer it from advancing housing developments.Encroachment by development is one of the factors considered in current BRAC decisions, explained Freeholder John P. Kelly, who was among the leaders of the Save Navy Lakehurst effort that reversed the earlier BRAC decision.

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