The Department of Defense is fortifying its perimeter defenses at Fort Riley, forming a coalition to establish a perpetual buffer against incursions by future development.

The effort, which includes financing and management provided by the Lawrence-based Kansas Land Trust, secured its first parcel of land Wednesday: 269 acres of open prairie northeast of the fort, overlooking Tuttle Creek Lake.

Coalition partners – the land trust, Department of Defense, Natural Resources Conservation Service and Kansas Conservation Commission – together paid $322,000 for a permanent conservation easement on the land that remains owned by Jane Laman, ensuring that her property’s uses will be limited to natural or agricultural operations.

The purchase is the first in a massive effort being undertaken by the trust, which hopes to secure as many as 50,000 acres along the fort’s perimeter in the coming years.

The effort’s goals:

¢ Preserve natural resources in the northern Flint Hills.

¢ Protect important, threatened and endangered species in the area.

¢ Retain flexibility for military operations to continue at the fort by reducing prospects for complaints about noise and other worries from people that might occupy homes or buildings that might be built nearby.

Conservation easements can keep land in place the way it is today.

“The cows don’t care if it’s noisy,” said RoxAnne Miller, executive director of the trust, which landed a commitment of $2 million for such easements from coalition partners. “You can grow crops. The agricultural uses can continue. : But when people build houses near a military property, they aren’t happy with the noise. The more complaints there are, the more incompatible the use is.”

Encroachment from development is becoming a major concern near Fort Riley, now that the 100,000-acre installation has been restored as headquarters for the Army’s 1st Infantry Division.

Developers are scrambling to build enough houses, businesses, roads and other projects to accommodate the estimated 30,000 additional people expected to move into the area as part of the division’s return to the fort, about 90 miles west of Lawrence on Interstate 70.

Military leaders long have supported keeping military installations free from outside interference, and political leaders have been known to close or cut operations at bases where complaints from neighbors have been loudest.

The acquisition announced Wednesday, part of a larger coalition plan to create buffers around other bases nationwide, is a victory for all parties involved, officials said. The defense department alone has $40 million set aside this year for such purchases; the money can be pooled with coalition partners on projects.

“This is a win-win partnership,” said Alex Beehler, assistant deputy undersecretary of defense for environment, safety and occupational health, who signed partnership papers Wednesday near Fort Riley. “It will greatly enhance the sustainability of our installations and the working landscapes surrounding those installations. (The department) recognizes that the viability of our installations is directly linked to working with others outside our fencelines.”

Alex Beehler, right, an assistant deputy undersecretary of defense, and Merlyn Carlson, a deputy undersecretary of agriculture, sign an agreement Wednesday to establish a partnership to promote land conservation near military bases. Also Wednesday, Fort Riley announced the acquisition of its first conservation buffer easement. Working with Lawrence-based Kansas Land Trust and other partners, the installation acquired an easement from a nearby landowner that will protect 269 acres of prairie grasslands threatened by development.