Review of higher altitude Navy bombing runs finds no big impact

Scott Sonner

Friday, Aug. 13, 1999 | 8:19 a.m.

RENO, Nev. - The Navy and Bureau of Land Management say an environmental review found no significant impact for plans to do more sophisticated electronic warfare training and higher altitude bombing runs at Fallon Naval Air Station.

But the leader of a local watchdog group said she remains unconvinced and fears sonic booms could result from the expanded training.

A draft environmental impact statement being made public Friday concludes plans to build new electronic warfare sites and train with armor-piercing Hellfire missiles would have no major impact on land use or air space at surrounding federal lands.

The proposed electronic warfare sites, anything from a satellite dish to small buildings, "would result in adverse but not significant impacts to nonsensitive wildlife and vegetation from site disturbance," said a copy of the draft obtained by The Associated Press.

No threatened or endangered species are in the area and training ranges would be surveyed for wetlands prior to any activities taking place, the draft said.

"It shouldn't be too controversial. There is no increase in air space or more land involved," said Ann McMillan, spokeswoman for Fallon NAS, located about 70 miles east of Reno.

The Navy already does some high-altitude bombing in the area, she said.

"We do it where we can. In order to do it for full capability, we need to be able to increase it," she said.

The draft says plans to raise the flight training ceiling to 35,000 feet from the current 18,000 feet would cause no significant impact on commercial flights because the Navy would be required to seek approval from the Federal Aviation Administration before a specific training mission could commence.

If anything, the higher elevation bombing flights would reduce noise impacts on the ground, compared with the current lower flights, the report concluded.

Grace Potorti, executive director of the Rural Alliance for Military Accountability based in Reno, said she intended to review the document on Friday. She said she had expected the Navy and BLM to report back with no problems anticipated.

"They always find no significant impact," she said Thursday.

"When you have electronic warfare systems, you go in and have a battlefield scenario. It's like a game. You fire mock weapons systems at aircraft," Potorti said.

"When you talk about electronic warfare, it means you are going to have overflights and sonic booms," she said.

She said the Navy did not originally disclose plans for the Hellfire missiles until her group pressed them for further explanation of the training expansion.

McMillan said the Hellfire missiles, at 5 feet tall and 100 pounds, are a kind of armor-piercing, anti-tank weapon usually carried by helicopters.

Terri Knutson, environmental planner for the BLM in Carson City, said the four sites for new fixed warfare equipment cover a total of 76 acres. She agreed with McMillan's assessment of the impact.

"There's not any real change. We're not talking about withdrawal of any public land - no increase in the number of flights or flight patterns," she said.

The field survey did identify "six unevaluated cultural resource sites," including two eligible for the National Register and "one National Register District that would be affected."

Neither McMillan nor Knutson knew exactly what that involved but Knutson said it is "probably not that big of deal," most likely a prehistoric Native American site that has not been disturbed.

"They probably found some evidence of some sort of site and didn't investigate it any further. It doesn't mean it is significant. It means we don't know," she said.