Utah escapes
missiles
The U.S. Army has
decided not to proceed with a plan to launch ballistic missiles
from Green River, Utah, and shoot them down over the White Sands
Missile Range in New Mexico. The decision, announced March 21, “is
great news for southern Utah,” says Scott Groene, an attorney with
the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance. Groene says determined
public opposition to the proposal forced the Army to back down. The
Army, however, said it abandoned the Green River site because of
“significant land-use problems’ associated with the dropping of
1-ton missile boosters near Canyonlands National Park (HCN,
8/22/94). The Army still plans to launch missiles from Fort
Wingate, Ariz., to White Sands. The boosters would land near the
Cibola National Forest in western New Mexico, but both the Forest
Service and private land owners in the area have “expressed a
willingness’ to allow the drops, the Army says. Some local
opponents dispute that claim. Mary Lou Jones of the Zuni Mountain
Coalition says, “I went to the public hearings and nobody spoke in
favor of the missiles.” Jones says the Army selected Fort Wingate
and a second site off the Kwajalein Islands in the South Pacific
“because we’re the brownest populations.”
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Paul Larmer
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Utah escapes missiles.
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