Environmental Regulations Limit Training of U.S. Troops.

• Author: Kennedy, Herald

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 E 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...