Expanded Powder River Training Range a reality

America will be safer, and so will the future of Ellsworth Air Force Base now that low-flying B-1 bombers took to the air Friday in the first military flying operations at the enormous bomber training area known as the Powder River Training Complex, U.S. Sen. John Thune said Friday. The expansion of the Powder River Training Complex over the Dakotas, Montana and Wyoming that was expanded this spring after years of consideration roughly quadruples the training airspace to span nearly 35,000 square miles, making it the largest over the continental U.S. Flight operations began after the Federal Aviation Administration finished mapping work on the expanded airspace, a spokeswoman for the 28th Bomb Wing at Ellsworth Air Force Base said in an email. But the training range expansion, which boosted the airspace to the size of Maine or Indiana, still bothers ranchers who fear for their cattle as well as their own safety, a livestock industry representative said Friday afternoon. Opponents of the airspace expansion have argued that the bombers would disrupt rural communities and scare livestock as they roar overhead on maneuvers, dropping flares and chaff, or fiber clusters intended to disturb radar waves. Native American groups also said the flights could disrupt cultural sites in the area. South Dakota Stockgrowers Association Executive Director Silvia Christen said her group’s 1,000-plus independent livestock producers fully supported the U.S. military, but still had concerns about the expansion. “This isn’t about patriotism, it’s about safety,” Christen said from the association’s Rapid City office. “Our two main concerns have always been things falling from the sky and large, fast-flying military aircraft sharing airspace with ranchers, many of whom use small private aircraft to check their herds and water supplies.” During training exercises, chaff is dropped to scramble radar signals and studies have shown the fine metal particles left behind can be ingested by animals, causing harm, she said. Secondly, flares used in training exercises sometimes fail to extinguish before hitting the ground, causing concern over potential prairie fires, Christen added...more