#bombing range

The Navy wants to expand its bombing range in Nevada, so I hope the bighorn, the mule deer, the golden eagles, the tortoises and the kit fox will all be given training in building and occupying bomb shelters. The guy quoted in the article, Pat Donnelly from the Center for Biological Diversity, is one of my friends. I can hear the outrage in his voice!

Excerpt from this EcoWatch article:

Friday the U.S. Navy released details of a plan to seize more than 600,000 acres of public land in central Nevada to expand a bombing range. The land under threat includes rich habitat for mule deer, important desert springs and nesting sites for raptors like golden eagles.

If approved by Congress, the 1,536-page plan would transform entire valleys and mountain ranges into bombing targets. Combined with another proposal to expand the Air Force's Nevada Test and Training Range, the military is attempting to grab 1.75 million acres of public land in Nevada—an area larger than Delaware.

"It's outrageous that the Trump administration wants to ram another military takeover of public lands down our throats," said Patrick Donnelly, Nevada state director at the Center for Biological Diversity. "The wide-open spaces of central Nevada's basin-and-range country are part of what makes our state so spectacular. Congress shouldn't let Trump seize hundreds of thousands of acres of public land so the military can drop bombs on our cherished wildlife and wild places."

The proposal would triple the size of Fallon Naval Air Station bombing ranges, seizing land in the iconic Fairview Peak area and the Stillwater National Wildlife Refuge. The plan released Friday follows an earlier proposal to expand the Nevada Test and Training Range in southern Nevada, which would take more than 1.1 million acres of Desert National Wildlife Refuge, currently managed to protect bighorn sheep and other wildlife.

Air Force Is Giving Ultimatum to Nevada Land Owners: Take Our Offer or We’ll Seize It

By:  Ken Ritter

LAS VEGAS (AP) — The U.S. Air Force is giving an ultimatum to owners of a remote Nevada property now surrounded by a vast bombing range including the super-secret Area 51: Take a $5.2 million “last best offer” by Thursday for their property, or the government will seize it.

The answer: No, at least for now.

The owners, who trace their mining and mineral claims to the 1870s,…

Bombing ends, but village still not free from past

By Steven Borowiec Contributing writer

HWASEONG, South Korea, Sept. 12 (Yonhap) -- Lee Young-ja sits alone in her garden preparing vegetables and enjoying silence in a place that for fifty years was plagued by the sound of bombs. Those explosions weren't the sound of active war but practice for one: between 1954 and 2005, two small islets off the coast of Maehyangri Village were used as a bombing range for the U.S. Air Force.    Maehyangri was used by planes from all over Asia, which would come to test high-powered weapons, including F-16 and A10 planes. "You can't imagine the sound of the bombs," said Lee, 82, who has lived her whole life in Maehyangri, a farming and fishing village in Gyeonggi Province near the Yellow Sea southwest of Seoul.    "I used to put my children to bed, then come outside and try to finish my chores. Every time a bomb fell the kids would wake up and I'd have to go back inside to comfort them. Every day we struggled like that."    The Kooni Firing Range finally closed in 2005, but the aftermath has left village residents with new problems. Leftovers from the bombing are gnawing at Maehyangri's ecosystem, but no one is cleaning up, and the residents are not even sure if they want the outside world to find out.

The firing range was not public knowledge until 1988, the year of Korea's democratization. Before that, media coverage on the range was forbidden. The abandoned air traffic control tower still sits looking out of place, peering over fields that grow corn and peppers. While the sound of explosives no longer dominates Maehyangri, the community of around 1,000 residents is still trying to recover from what they described as life similar to that in a war zone.    Before the 2005 closure, residents fought for years to have the range shut down. The resistance movement gained momentum every time an errant bomb killed or injured a Maehyangri resident. Throughout Kooni's time in use, 10 people were killed and more were seriously injured in bombing accidents. In 1967, a pregnant woman lost her life after being hit by a bomb while digging for oysters. The following year, a group of five children was hit with a bomb while playing on the beach. Four of them died from their injuries.    Jeon Man-gyu, 56, has dedicated his adult life to Maehyangri's struggle. Currently the chairman of the Residents' Committee to Found Maehyangri Peace Village, he says that the most tragic legacy of the bombing was the psychological damage it inflicted on the community.    "The bombing created a tense atmosphere. The village has an exceptionally high rate of suicide and there have been lots of fights among the residents," he said.    Jeon himself has a troubled history. In 2006, he kidnapped and stabbed his then wife and mutilated his own body during a marital dispute. In 2009, he was convicted of attacking a Coast Guard officer and taking his wife hostage. He is now divorced.    The U.S. Air Force made no known effort to clean up the countless bombs that were left after decades of practice drills. Used shells would disintegrate and bleed chemicals into the ground and water. In a study of soil in the area, the South Korean defense ministry found lead, cadmium and copper that exceeded permissible levels. The residents collected more than 30,000 rusted pieces of ordnance that are today piled in the village.    The damage to the local ecology is especially problematic for those in Maehyangri who rely on fishing for their livelihood...