Plan to Increase Use of Army Base Is Dropped

After complaints by environmentalists, Native Americans and others, the Navy has dropped plans to greatly increase use of an Army base between Hearst Castle and Big Sur as a bombing range, Navy officials announced Thursday.

The Navy decided that more use of Ft. Hunter Liggett would not result in the $3-million savings in jet fuel that was initially estimated.

Rep. Sam Farr (D-Salinas) called the decision “a great victory” for opponents who had complained about noise, possible destruction of threatened species of flora and fauna, and negative impact on tourism along the state’s Central Coast.

“I understand that the Navy needs to train its jet fighter pilots, but this is simply not the place for it,” Farr said. “This is a place where people come to find tranquillity and beauty.”

The Navy already uses the site for between 200 and 300 training missions a year for F-18 jets from Lemoore Naval Air Station and carriers training off the Southern California coast. That use will continue, officials said.

The proposal would have increased the number of missions to nearly 3,000 a year.

“We still intend to use the range like we have for years,” said Cmdr. Jack Papp. “There continues to be a need to train at Ft. Hunter Liggett.”

Members of the Salinan National Indian tribe had complained that the increased bombing would be an affront to their cultural heritage because their ancestors once lived nearby. The National Park Service and a group of Benedictine monks whose hermitage is nearby had also opposed the plan.

The proposal would have shifted to the site training missions that now are done at bombing ranges at Fallon, Nev.; Superior Valley near Barstow; and the Chocolate Mountains in eastern Riverside County. Hunter Liggett is 76 miles west of Lemoore, the closest of the ranges.

The 165,000-acre Ft. Hunter Liggett, 40 miles south of Big Sur, was closed as an active-duty Army base in 1995 but still serves as a training site for Army reserves and the National Guard.

The Navy had predicted that nearby residents would barely hear the high-flying jets and that only dummy bombs would be dropped on a 500-foot, red-white-and-blue bull’s-eye in the Upper Stony Valley portion of the base. The San Luis Obispo and Morro Bay city councils opposed the proposal.

Navy officials have been increasingly concerned in recent years that the lack of bombing ranges and tight budgets have reduced the amount of bombing practice that air crews receive before deploying.