Air Force Drops Plans For Training Range But Military Is Revising Proposal That May Still Include Idaho Land

The Air Force has abandoned plans for a 25,000-acre southwestern Idaho training range for Mountain Home Air Force Base.

Environmentalists and Indian tribal spokesmen, who had filed suit to stop the range, uneasily hailed the announcement Wednesday.

But Gov. Phil Batt said he is confident the Air Force will work to establish another facility in Idaho.

“Assurances made to me, and public statements made yesterday by the Air Force, show that the Air Force is committed to exploring alternative training sites in Idaho,” he said.

Range foes are wary that the military could come back with yet another proposal they believe would threaten the environmentally sensitive Owyhee Canyonlands.

“This feels good, but I’m afraid the corpse has a little life to it,” said Brian Donesley, a Boise attorney for the Shoshone-Paiute Tribes.

Indeed, a Mountain Home Air Force Base spokeswoman confirmed the military will work on a revised plan that could include Idaho land in or near the area. The canyonlands provides important bighorn sheep habitat and is prized for its wilderness.

“The Air Force hopes a consensus can be developed for other locations or other concepts that we can use to enhance the tactical training closer to home,” Capt. Christie Dragan said.

“I am disappointed with any delays in establishing an Idaho Training Range,” Batt said, “but I believe the Air Force’s decision not to pursue the current training range will move the process ahead more quickly.”

Word that the three-year-old training range plan was being dropped came in the wake of a May 9 ruling by U.S. District Judge Edward Lodge.

The judge said the Air Force should not have done separate environmental impact statements in 1992 on the impact of moving the composite wing - an advance strike force of bombers, fighters and support aircraft - to Mountain Home, and in 1994 on the effects of a training range for the wing.

Lodge ordered the Air Force to complete a new combined impact statement.

On Tuesday, the U.S. Attorney’s office for Idaho asked Lodge to drop his order, saying the Air Force decided immediately before the ruling to abandon the range. Further environmental studies on the range would be futile and wasteful, the government said.

But the judge should still require a combined impact statement for the wing and any new range proposal, said Murray Feldman, attorney for Greater Owyhee Legal Defense, which along with the tribes sued the Air Force.

The old range proposal would have included targets for small practice bombs. The plaintiffs want to continue the litigation to curtail training that already occurs over the proposed target sites, including about 1,000 supersonic training fights a year and large-scale exercises.

The Indians are concerned about impacts on their religious and cultural sites, on recreation and its spinoff economic benefits.

The Air Force maintains the training range and supersonic flights are compatible with those values, and that expanded training is needed to enhance the combat readiness of the composite wing.

Dragan said the Air Force, Department of Interior and the state will try in the next several months to work on a new range that will supplement the existing Saylor Creek range south of Mountain Home and protect the environment.