STOP  THE  NEW  AIR  FORCE  RADAR

FACILITIES  IN  SALINE  VALLEY !!

 

 

Write  Senators  and  the  Death  Valley  Park  Superintendent  Today !!

 

 

Desert Survivors:

 

Like many of you, I have been impressed with the remote grandeur of California’s Saline Valley, and the Inyo Mountains which loom 10,000 feet above, like some Himalayan edifice, something out of a movie about Central Asia.  I started going there in 1979.  I picked out my hiking destinations by looking at geology reports and topo maps, so impressive was the terrain.  In fact, Saline and the Inyos came to be known as Desert Survivors’ “ancestral home”, the place where the group’s founders got their start, the place that inspired them to protect the desert and to found a group that would do so, based on the appreciation of desert wilderness as Wilderness.

 

I’ve just learned of an attempt by the United States Air Force to construct two radar facilities, a radar beacon site and a microwave repeater, in the Saline area so as to facilitate military overflights.  One of these will be located in the Nelson Range and one is slated for the Saline Valley floor.  Both will be within or adjacent to the remote western part of Death Valley National Park, an NPS unit designed to protect desert wilderness as stark and remote as any other in the U.S.

 

In its proposal, the Air Force claims it needs these facilities “to provide air traffic controllers and pilots with real-time flight data within the Saline Valley area and other information that would assist in flight safety as well as aircraft identification and search and rescue operations”.  The notice for the draft environmental assessment also states that “this initiative is based upon a history of aircraft near collisions and a corresponding potential for mid-air collisions”.  Although the California Desert Protection Act, which created the Park, allows for the military to continue some operations over Park airspace as they have done in the past, it sounds to me like the Air Force is moving to make its presence in the Park permanent.  Allowing these facilities to go forward will institutionalize Death Valley Park as a permanent base for use by the military, at a time when many of us are trying to get the military out of our Parks and Wilderness, to turn our skies back to nature, where they belong.

 

I urge all who read this to support our efforts to ban these facilities, and to end military overflights of Death Valley Park, our other National Parks, and our desert Wilderness Areas.  An elaboration of reasons is given on the other side of this Alert! Notice.

 

Write four letters: one to the Death Valley Superintendent, one to the Department of the Interior, and one to each of our California Senators.  The Air Force is trying to do its own Environmental Assessment separate from the National Park, but this clearly is a National Park issue, and a national issue.  If you live outside California, write your own Senators.  

 

And send me copies of your letters for our files.  We want to have some ammunition if this issue comes to a public hearing.

 

ACT NOW to stop this hare-brained proposal.

                                                                                                Steve Tabor, President

                                                                                                Desert Survivors

(510) 769-1706                                                                       PO Box 20991

<president@desert-survivors.org>                                            Oakland, CA 94620-0991

 

 

The Air Force has closed the comment period on its draft environmental assessment, with which it seeks to circumvent requirements that the public assess the nature of it intrusion into a National Park.  It is basing its proposal on the 1966 Transportation Act !!  As if military overflights are a simple effort at “transportation” that needs a little bit of help from some “air traffic controllers”!!  But what we have is an attempt to misuse a National Park, which was established by Congress for other reasons, a whole host of which are present in the California Desert Protection Act and a huge battery of other legislation that governs the National Park Service’ 100-year-old tradition.  That is why we are writing Death Valley National Park and our Senators, and not the Air Force.

 

SOME POINTS TO MAKE IN YOUR LETTERS:

 

1.  Construction of any military facility in Saline Valley will degrade the experience of National Park users.  Death Valley National Park has been set aside for its outstanding natural and cultural values.  Neither military bases nor military jets have a place in the Park.

 

2.  Military flights should be banned from the Park and its air space.  The noise and sight of military jets are a constant irritation to visitors who have come to the Park to enjoy its natural and wilderness values.  The military has plenty of air space over its own bases to run maneuvers.  Running them over the Park is a self-indulgence, not a military necessity.

 

3.  There is a constant danger of crashes from military jets due to the overflights, a probability that is mentioned in the notice (see above) as a reason for the construction of the facilities.  This will result in damage to National Park resources from toxic substances on the airplanes, including nuclear weapons, uranium-tipped warheads, and chemical and biological agents in weapons.  There will also be damage from search and rescue necessitated by crashes.  The public will be banned from the Park for security reasons until cleanup is completed (this happened in an Arizona valley in 1981).  All of these are dangers, encumbrances and nuisances that the Park-going public should not have to endure.

 

4.  Military construction and overflights should be reduced if not eliminated for budgetary reasons.  The U.S. government is bankrupt, running up huge deficits, most of which are military-related.  The American people cannot afford further military construction and expansion.  This is another good reason to ban military activity from the Park and its airspace.  The recent failure in Iraq indicates that air power is useless when attempting to subdue and occupy a foreign power.  And we simply cannot afford it.

 

5. Powerful radar is a dangerous technology when used around people.  Park visitors would be subjected to these dangers if the facility is built.  Radar of the scope needed for the facility has no place around humans, especially Park tourists.  The National Park would be open to lawsuits from visitors if this radar malfunctions and/or proves to be harmful.

 

6.  Add your own reasons, and state why YOU value Saline Valley as much as you do.  And send me a copy of your letter/e-mail.

 

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SEND A LETTER TO EACH OF THE FOLLOWING:

 

Superintendent J. R. Reynolds                                                               The Honorable Gale Norton, Secretary

Death Valley National Park                                                                    Department of the Interior

P.O. Box 579                                                                                        1849 C Street, N.W.

Death Valley, CA 92328                                                                        Washington DC 20240

 

Senator Barbara Boxer                                                                         Senator Dianne Feinstein

112 Hart Senate Office Building                                                            331 Hart Office Building

Washington, DC 20510-3553                                                              Washington DC 20510-0504

 

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