Environmentalists fighting the expansion of a U.S.
Air Force training range in southern Idaho lost a round. At issue
was a 961-acre tract of grazing land that the U.S. Air Force says
it needs for its 12,000-acre Juniper Butte training area (HCN,
4/13/98).
Favoring the military, Idaho’s Land
Board turned down a $5,000 bid from the Owyhee Canyonlands
Coalition while unanimously accepting a $10 bid from the Air Force.
The Air Force will also pay the state $213,000 in lease fees over
the 25-year duration of the lease.
The Air Force
plans to begin work on the $40 million training-range project in
April.
Supporters of the range, which will be
equipped with emitter stations that simulate enemy radar, say its
development is linked to the future of the nearby Mountain Home Air
Force Base, whose 10,000 workers pump more than $105 million into
the Idaho economy. Without the radar range, the Air Force says the
base might not survive the next round of congressionally ordered
closures.
“It’s a tremendous plus for keeping the
Air Force in Idaho,” says Col. Billy
Richey.
Environmentalists don’t believe it. “It’s
a scare tactic,” says Roger Singer of the Sierra Club in Boise.
Singer says the coalition’s last chance now to
stop the project may lie in the courts: It recently filed two
lawsuits challenging the Air Force environmental impact statement,
which await further hearing.
*Rocky
Barker
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Air Force lands a deal.
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