Lompoc Fears Loss of Tranquil Life Style : Small Town Gets Big Boost From Shuttle

Ten miles from the military base where America’s second space shuttle port nears completion, rows of new homes encroach on the colorful farmlands of the self-proclaimed “Flower Seed Capital of the World.”

At one edge of the city, 150 miles northwest of Los Angeles, a sign lists Lompoc’s population as 27,000. Across town, a more recent sign puts the number at 30,000.

Long accustomed to boom-and-bust economic cycles because of its dependence on government programs at nearby Vandenberg Air Force Base, the tranquil city of Lompoc is growing again, partly due to an influx of retirees but largely because of construction of Vandenberg’s $2.8-billion space shuttle complex.

Like other towns affected by huge construction projects, Lompoc’s growth has inspired hopes for better economic health and fears that a peaceful, small-town way of life will fall by the wayside.

Place for a Family

“I live in Lompoc and raise my children here because it’s a small, rural, agricultural community,” said City Councilman John Bullock, a teacher. “I see the quality of life being degraded. We have a flower seed industry unequaled in the world. It’s going to get paved over patch by patch.”

However, “quality of life” has two meanings for Santa Barbara County Supervisor DeWayne Holmdahl, whose district encompasses the 3-by-10-mile Lompoc Valley and its 50,000 residents, including the city’s 30,000.

“One is having a job and money to take care of your family. The other is the environment,” Holmdahl said. “Lompoc has been blessed with a good environment, but not with a good job market. We still have the highest unemployment in the county.

“Lompoc has been the sleepiest the longest,” he said. “Now it’s starting to grow and people are scared to death.”

Former Army Camp

Vandenberg, the nation’s third largest Air Force base, once was the Army’s Camp Cooke until it closed after World War II.

“That was the first boom and bust,” said retired Air Force Maj. Ron Peck, who recently left his job as a Vandenberg spokesman.

The Air Force acquired the property in 1957, boosting Lompoc’s economy as the base became the nation’s major launch site for intercontinental ballistic missile tests, Peck said.

By 1964, he said, ICBM research and development slowed. In 1969, Congress canceled the military’s Manned Orbiting Laboratory project, forcing abandonment of a partly completed launch pad, which since has been rebuilt for use when the first shuttle soars into orbit from Vandenberg next March.

“When they canceled the MOL project, the town almost collapsed economically,” said Mike Powers, a planner with the Santa Barbara County-Cities Area Planning Council. “Vandenberg sneezes and Lompoc catches a cold.”

Work Force Cut in Half

Vandenberg’s work force dropped from about 20,000 in the mid-1960s to a low of 10,000 in 1979, when construction of the shuttle complex began. Thanks to the shuttle program and testing of MX missiles, the total is now about 15,000.

Most of the 2,000 shuttle complex construction workers have departed, but the number of shuttle operations employees has grown to 3,500, although Air Force officials say the number will drop somewhat in future years.

Many Lompoc residents hope the shuttle work force, plus tourists drawn to view shuttle launches and landings, will stabilize the local economy.

“The shuttle is obviously not a boom-and-bust, research-and-development project,” Peck said “It’s a long-term operational commitment.”

But he said the townspeople have “a love-hate relationship with the shuttle. It’s going to be a wonderful economic boost to the local merchants, particularly those who want to boost the tourist industry. But others are scared to death it’s going to change their tranquil, bucolic community.”

Some Trouble Signs

There already have been growing pains.

“Since 1980, we’ve had about a 15% increase in population and I assume it’s due to the shuttle,” Police Capt. Bob Hebert said. “There are some people concerned the city may be overbuilding. We have several new housing tracts with houses sitting vacant with windows broken out of them.”

“The local developers will exaggerate the need for housing and development at the drop of a hat because obviously it’s profitable for them,” Bullock said. “We built a lot of houses, but there’s nobody from the space shuttle or MX program in them.

“When I stand by and watch the development community boondoggle and toot their horn and push development under the guise of providing housing for the space program--the people for which don’t really materialize--I’m upset.”

Bullock, Holmdahl replied, would “like to live back in the Dark Ages.” He said overbuilding occurred when closures of some local industries slowed anticipated growth. Many laid-off workers were hired by shuttle contractors, reducing recruitment of outsiders.

Construction Delays

Powers said growth projections also proved too high because of delays in construction of the shuttle port and decisions by many shuttle workers to live in Santa Maria, a city of 47,000 people 25 miles north of Lompoc.

Any growth already poses problems for Lompoc Valley, which Holmdahl said is “short of (ground) water even if we don’t have another person move into town.”

The flower seed industry, which Holmdahl said consumes 85% of the valley’s water, is concerned about preservation of valley farmlands.

“It is the largest growing area in the United States for flower seeds, and that makes it one of the largest (flower) growing areas in the world,” said Kim Bodger, sales director of Lompoc’s Bodger Seeds Ltd. “The shuttle will result in growth of the city of Lompoc and that will result in a reduction of agricultural land.”