Let them eat bullets

Area legislators and El Paso County commissioners spent some time at a joint meeting Wednesday morning blasting anyone who doesn't embrace the military and all of its apparent economic development benefits. At issue are the Air Force’s proposed low-altitude tactical navigation flights over southern Colorado and northern New Mexico. The service would use C-22 Ospreys and C-130 Hercules turboprop aircraft from Cannon Air Force Base near Clovis, N.M., in roughly three training flights per day, with most happening at night and during the week. The Trinidad Times has reported that some ranchers report their cattle already have been spooked and injured as they stampeded through barbed-wire fences due to low-flying military aircraft. The newspaper also reported that the Colorado Division of Wildlife has raised concerns about low-flying training flights, saying some species will be directly impacted. Then Commissioner Dennis Hisey brought up a scathing letter the Pueblo Board of County Commissioners sent last month to the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation. The letter sought the federal council's intervention and opposition to further Army training at the Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site, the Pueblo Chieftain reported. The maneuvers, the Chieftain quoted the letter as saying, endanger historic artifacts on the 238,000-acre range northeast of Trinidad, and the Army's use of Piñon Canyon has "demonstrated a pattern and practice of repeated violations of the National Historic Preservation Act."...more