The U.S. military services–among the nation’s largest
landowners–are struggling to work around a growing array of
environmental policy restrictions that officials say are posing
severe limitations to their use of training installations, firing
ranges and other facilities.
Such factors as urban sprawl, endangered species and regulatory
restrictions on live-fire training are beginning to interfere with
military readiness, Pentagon officials told the 27th Environmental
Symposium and Exhibition, held recently in Austin, Texas. The event
was sponsored by the National Defense Industrial Association.
"Range encroachment is a significant challenge in the United
States today," said Curtis M. Bowling, assistant deputy undersecretary
of defense for force protection. "It cuts across all elements
of the Defense Department. The causes are many and complex, and
the impact is broad."
The issue is attracting growing attention on Capitol Hill. "Defense
Department training ranges here and overseas are under siege,"
said Rep. Dan Burton, R.-Ind., chairman of the House Committee on
Government Reform. The situation is "affecting the ability
of our forces to fight, and this administration needs to tackle
this problem before it gets out of control."
In all, the Defense Department owns 519 fixed installations, located
on 18 million acres of land in more than 140 countries, making the
department the federal government’s third-largest property
owner, after the Interior and Agriculture Departments. Among the
Pentagon’s holdings are literally thousands of firing ranges,
where generations of U.S. troops have learned to use their weapons
before going to war. They vary from small facilities for pistol
practice–found on nearly every major base–to Nevada’s
3 million-acre Nellis Air Force Range, where combat pilots receive
advanced training.
The Navy maintains ranges at San Clemente, Calif.; Vieques Island,
Puerto Rico, and Farallon De Medinilla, near Guam. They are the
only U.S.-owned locations on the east and west coasts and in the
Western Pacific Ocean where Navy ships can conduct live-fire training
before being deployed, said Rear Adm. Larry C. Baucom, director
of environmental protection, safety and occupational health for
the Navy Department.
This live-fire training, however, is coming under increasing public
attack. After a civilian security guard was killed by an errant
bomb at Vieques, in 1999, protesters occupied the site, and Puerto
Rico’s governor called for an immediate halt to live fire.
The practice is a danger not only to the 9,300 human residents
of Vieques, opponents said, but also to sea turtles, which nest
on the island’s beaches and are protected by the Endangered
Species Act.
Navy officials respond that live fire is not a threat to humans
outside of the range, which is located more than eight miles from
the nearest town. As for the range’s sea turtles, they are
being managed carefully, Vice Adm. James F. Amerault, deputy chief
of naval operations, told a recent Senate hearing.
"The Navy’s practice has been to relocate turtle eggs
during amphibious landings and other military exercises," Amerault
said. A decade ago, the Navy built a sea-turtle hatchery on Vieques.
Since then, more than 17,000 turtles have been hatched and successfully
introduced into the environment.
The Navy has been conducting training at Vieques since 1941, and
it wants to continue to do so. "Vieques is a superb training
range, the best in the entire Atlantic," according to Pentagon
spokesman Rear Adm. Craig Quigley. It is "absolutely essential"
to the readiness of U.S. forces preparing to deploy, he said.
To settle the dispute, island voters are scheduled to vote in a
referendum on Nov. 6, 2001, to decide whether to end all training
and have the Navy leave the island by May 1, 2003. Meanwhile, the
Navy is looking for alternative training sites in the Atlantic region,
thus far without success. The Navy has agreed to provide $40 million
in economic aid to Vieques and promises another $50 million if islanders
will permit the resumption of live-fire training.
Until the vote is taken, training continues on Vieques, but without
live fire. In April of this year, sailors and Marines from the USS
Enterprise carrier battle group–on their way to the Arabian
Gulf–conducted a short exercise there, using inert bombs and
shells. More than 100 demonstrators tried unsuccessfully to block
the exercise.
Range Management
During the nation’s early history–when it had a vast
western frontier–the services had little need for training
ranges. Just in the past century or so have they been used, said
Army Maj. Gen. Robert T. Van Antwerp, assistant chief of staff for
installation management. For most of this period, the ranges were
managed with little concern for environmental issues, he said.
"Only over the last 30 years has the United States begun to
understand and regulate the potential environmental impacts of a
wide variety of civil and industrial practices," Van Antwerp
said. During the 1970s, Congress passed a number of laws aimed at
protecting the environment, including the Clean Water and Clean
Air Acts and the Endangered Species Act.
Over time, Congress and the courts have made it clear that these
laws apply to federal agencies–including the armed services–just
as they do to everybody else.
The services have implemented programs to comply, and they have
had some success. Since 1993, according to a spokesman for the Defense
Department’s Office for Environmental Security, the department
has:
To reduce the contamination on firing ranges, the services also
are switching to lead-free bullets, known as green ammunition. This
year, the Army plans to produce 50 million 5.56 mm rounds for the
M-16 family of rifles and the Squad Automatic Weapon.
Some of these actions, however, "have come at the expense
of training capabilities," said Van Antwerp. As an example,
he cited the Army’s Fort Hood, in Texas.
Erosion control practices designed to comply with the Clean Water
Act prohibit digging on more than two thirds of the base’s
185,000 acres of ranges and training land, he explained. "This
means," he said, "no digging for vehicle fighting positions,
survivability positions, maneuver obstacles or individual fighting
positions–all of which are required to meet doctrinal training
standards for many units on Fort Hood."
To comply with the Clean Air Act, no smoke, flares, chemical grenades
or pyrotechnics are allowed on about 25 percent of the base’s
training acreage.
From March through August each year, vehicle and dismounted maneuver
training is restricted to established trails, and halts in restricted
areas are limited to two hours in designated endangered species
core areas. Artillery firing, smoke generation and chemical grenades
are prohibited within 100 meters of those areas.
Fort Hood’s training areas also contain more than 2,400 archeological
and culturally significant sites, where digging is prohibited. On
more than 1,000 acres, artillery and Multiple Launch Rocket Systems
cannot be fired because of noise regulations.
In all, only about 17 percent of Fort Hood’s training lands
are available for use without restriction, Van Antwerp said.
Cease Fire
Army leaders are "very concerned," he noted, about the
recent cessation of all live-fire training at the Massachusetts
Military Reserve. Compliance cost the 22,000-acre reserve an estimated
$60 million. If similar restrictions were applied to a major training
facility, such as Fort Hood, he said, "the results could be
catastrophic, both from a fiscal and a readiness perspective."
In fiscal year 2001, he explained, Army units at Fort Hood were
authorized to fire 35.4 million rounds of ammunition at its 33 small-arms
ranges, 24 major-weapons facilities and several field-artillery
and mortar firing points.
Live-fire training is necessary, "to provide soldiers the
opportunities to practice their skills in combat-like conditions,"
Van Antwerp said. "The fact that the Army’s mission increasingly
includes peacekeeping operations does not reduce the need for combat
training.
"In fact, ‘policing’ requires soldiers to be highly
proficient with pinpoint target identification and engagement procedures,"
he explained. "This only can be accomplished by practicing
with the actual weapon in specifically designed training exercises
on our ranges and training areas designed for that purpose."
Historically, the services chose remote locations for their training
lands. But over the past 30 years, Van Antwerp said, suburban developments
have surrounded many of these facilities.
As the surrounding human populations have grown, the uninhabited
training lands have become havens for wildlife. The 9 million acres
of land and water managed by the Air Force, for example, contain
70 federally listed threatened and endangered species, including
antelope, bats, mice, reptiles, amphibians and plants, according
to Maj. Gen. Walter E. Buchanan III, director of Air Force Operations
and Training.
"The Barry M. Goldwater Range, in Arizona, is home to the
last 100 or so Sonoran Pronghorn Antelope in the United States,"
he noted. The Defense Department flies about 70,000 sorties there
each year, he said. Before every sortie, seven different target
areas are surveyed.
"If there are any antelope present, we do not drop or strafe
on that target that day," said Buchanan.
The Air Force faces wildlife restrictions even at sea, Buchanan
explained. The Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) has issued permits
to the Air Force’s Air Armament Center at Eglin Air Force
Base, in Florida, allowing it to use live munitions for a wide variety
of ordnance tests training over the Gulf of Mexico.
Under the FWS agreement with the Air Force, FWS employees place
electronic tags on gulf sturgeon and track them to ensure that they
are not in an area where live ordnance is being detonated.
In previous decades, the communities surrounding most military
bases were made up of people whose incomes depended, one way or
another, upon the facilities, officials said, and they were supportive
of most base activities.
Increasingly, that is no longer the case. As populations around
bases have grown, the new residents "are less familiar with
sights and sounds of range and training activities," said Van
Antwerp. Their impressions are based on "noise, smoke and a
lack of access to ... the most pristine natural landscapes in their
regions."
In general, U.S. citizens today are less likely to have personal
military experience than they were 30 years ago, Van Antwerp said.
Thus, he said, they have a lower appreciation of the need for rigorous
training.
In Virginia Beach and Chesapeake, Va., property owners filed a
class-action lawsuit in April, alleging that 156 Navy F/A C/C Hornets
recently transferred to nearby Naval Air Station Oceana have adversely
impacted the value of their properties. This, they claim, violates
the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which forbids the
taking of private property "for public use, without just compensation."
If this suit is successful, a Navy official warns, "it potentially
could involve $500 million in damage payments to the owners of some
20,000 homes."
Public protests are particularly irate concerning the large air-training
ranges of the West. "The people of our nation’s rural
areas–who have chosen to live there because of the qualities
of peace, solitude and natural beauty–are increasingly buzzed,
boomed and bombed by military aircraft," according to Grace
Potorti, a spokesperson for the Nevada-based Rural Alliance for
Military Accountability. "How much of the sky does the Pentagon
really need?"
Actually, in recent years, the Air Force has used national airspace
less often as its force structure has decreased, Buchanan said.
However, he conceded, the service is being forced "to modify
and consolidate our ranges and special-use airspace" to cope
with consolidation of units after base closures, more capable aircraft
systems, long-range precision weapons and constantly changing tactics.
The Air Force’s number one problem, when it tries to modify
or establish new airspace, is noise, Buchanan said. "In some
cases, we can accommodate public noise concerns with no loss to
the effectiveness of our training," he explained. "When
apprised of a noise-sensitive area, we routinely chart it and avoid
it, if possible."
When that is not possible, "we try to communicate [to the
public] what we are doing, when we are flying and why," Buchanan
said. "We have found that altering [the public’s] expectations
and increasing their knowledge of what is going on can reduce [their]
negative reaction to noise."
The services agree that continued access to training ranges is
vital to sustaining mission readiness. They recognize that they
must "train in harmony with the environment, whenever possible,"
said Amerault. But Burton added:
"In my view, the issue is not readiness vs. the environment,
or readiness vs. development, or readiness vs. commercial aviation.
We should not have to choose. The central question before us ...
is how these important national interests can be advanced in a balanced,
cooperative way."