Millions of Additional Acres Needed for Combat Training, Pentagon Says

The Pentagon today defended plans to take over millions of additional acres of public lands for combat training, arguing that more room is needed to train soldiers and pilots in the use of modern weaponry.

The expansion plans have been sharply criticized by environmentalists and ranchers, especially in Western states where more than 3 million additional acres are sought by the Defense Department for expanded bombing runs and tank maneuvers.

Testifying before a House Interior subcommittee, Pentagon officials said modern technology requires expanded training areas “to provide the realism” of combat.

“Today’s high-speed modern tactical aircraft fly over large ground ranges in a matter of seconds. . . . Today a mechanized Army battalion needs more than 80,000 acres to practice standard maneuvers, compared to 4,000 acres during World War II,” said Robert A. Stone, deputy assistant defense secretary for installations.

But the military’s grab for land has sparked controversy across much of the West, from Montana to California, and also in Mississippi, where the state National Guard thinks that DeSoto National Forest is just the place for tank maneuvers.

Among critics called to appear later at the hearing were several Idaho and Montana ranchers as well as representatives from environmental and citizen groups who argue that the military is locking the public out of too many acres of federal land.

Several congressmen said, however, that defense needs might have to override other concerns.

Rep. Larry E. Craig (R-Ida.), in whose state the Air Force wants to vastly expand a bombing range, said that while local interests must be taken into account it also “is critical to the country” that the military training be the best it can be.

The military currently uses more than 19 million acres of land belonging to the federal Bureau of Land Management or the U.S. Forest Service. It wants to expand those holdings by 3.4 million acres in seven Western states alone, according to congressional estimates.

“The growing appetite for more public lands on which to practice war games appears to be out of sync with the warming of relations between the U.S. and the Soviet Bloc,” said Rep. Bruce F. Vento (D-Minn.), chairman of the subcommittee on national parks and public lands.

In Idaho, a plan by the Air Force to vastly expand the Saylor Creek bombing range from 100,000 acres to 1.5 million acres is prompting loud protests. Ranchers say the expansion will drive them out of desirable grazing land on the high plateau. Environmentalists argue that the bombing will ruin the countryside and destroy a valuable wildlife habitat.

The Navy also wants 240,000 acres of public land in Nevada for “range and air crew training,” while Nevada’s Army Guard has set its sights on 586,000 acres of public grazing land for tank training.

Bob Fulkerson, executive director of Citizen Alert, a Nevada-based environmental group, says the military is “empire building” and maintains that the training plans would lock up 4 million acres of federal land now available to the public and wildlife.