Editorial: Safeguard mission of Nellis AFB

Friday, Dec. 20, 2002 | 9:21 a.m.

Returning from the Persian Gulf War 11 years ago, many U.S. pilots said they owed their success in missions over Iraq to the training they received while flying over the Nellis Range. Military pilots from all over the country, as well as pilots from allied nations, come to Nellis Air Force Base to train and then return to their home bases and teach other pilots. With another war looming against Iraq, the importance of Nellis Air Force Base cannot be overstated. For realistic training, there is nothing like the 3-million-acre Nellis Range, north of the base, anywhere else in the country.

For the past 15 years, however, as Southern Nevada has experienced a continuous population boom, the base has had to contend with housing and retail developments creeping closer and closer. Because of the frequency of Nellis training missions -- 55,000 last year -- and the fact that live ordnance is almost always aboard, such development poses safety hazards. Nellis is hemmed in on the east by McCarran International Airport airspace. On the southern and western edges of the base, takeoffs with live ammunition were discontinued years ago because of the onward creep of homes and businesses. A flight path to the northwest is now the only safe route.

The Air Force is doing its part by spending $40 million to buy land in an "accident potential zone" underneath the northwest flight path. Now it's time for Clark County to do its part and disallow home development at the Apex industrial park, just a little farther northwest. A recent proposal to build 36,000 homes there was withdrawn, but it's inevitable that other proposals will come. Housing development at Apex could seriously undermine the mission of Nellis and, in the long run, jeopardize the security of our country.