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81–854 PDF 2002

SUSTAINING CRITICAL MILITARY TRAINING

FACILITIES: AVON PARK AIR FORCE RANGE

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY,

VETERANS AFFAIRS AND INTERNATIONAL

RELATIONS

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON

GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

AUGUST 4, 2001

Serial No. 107–106

Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/congress/house

http://www.house.gov/reform

(II)

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM

DAN BURTON, Indiana, Chairman

BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York

CONSTANCE A. MORELLA, Maryland

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

STEPHEN HORN, California

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

JOE SCARBOROUGH, Florida

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

BOB BARR, Georgia

DAN MILLER, Florida

DOUG OSE, California

RON LEWIS, Kentucky

JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

DAVE WELDON, Florida

CHRIS CANNON, Utah

ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida

C.L. ‘‘BUTCH’’ OTTER, Idaho

EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

TOM LANTOS, California

MAJOR R. OWENS, New York

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

PATSY T. MINK, Hawaii

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, Washington,

DC

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

JIM TURNER, Texas

THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine

JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

DIANE E. WATSON, California

——— ———

———

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

(Independent)

KEVIN BINGER, Staff Director

DANIEL R. MOLL, Deputy Staff Director

JAMES C. WILSON, Chief Counsel

ROBERT A. BRIGGS, Chief Clerk

PHIL SCHILIRO, Minority Staff Director

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY, VETERANS AFFAIRS AND INTERNATIONAL

RELATIONS

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut, Chairman

ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida

BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

RON LEWIS, Kentucky

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

DAVE WELDON, Florida

C.L. ‘‘BUTCH’’ OTTER, Idaho

EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine

TOM LANTOS, California

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

DIANE E. WATSON, California

——— ———

EX OFFICIO

DAN BURTON, Indiana HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

LAWRENCE J. HALLORAN, Staff Director and Counsel

JASON CHUNG, Clerk

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on August 4, 2001 ............................................................................. 1

Statement of:

Thompson, Lt. Col. Earle R., USAF, Commander, 347 Rescue Wing, Det

1 & Avon Park AFR, MacDill AFB, Florida; Lt. Col. Charles Golden,

operations and plan officer, Florida National Guard, Camp Blanding,

Stark, FL; Ronald J. Liszt, Acting Assistant Air Traffic Division Manager, Southern Region, Federal Aviation Administration; Steve

Handley, rancher/councilman, city of Avon Park, FL; Curt Olsen, Timber Management Operations, Avon Park Air Force Range, Avon Park,

FL; and Dale Landress, warden, Avon Park Correctional Institution,

Avon Park, FL ............................................................................................... 10

Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:

Golden, Lt. Col. Charles, operations and plan officer, Florida National

Guard, Camp Blanding, Stark, FL, prepared statement of ....................... 18

Handley, Steve, rancher/councilman, city of Avon Park, FL, prepared

statement of ................................................................................................... 28

Landress, Dale, warden, Avon Park Correctional Institution, Avon Park,

FL, prepared statement of ............................................................................ 41

Liszt, Ronald J., Acting Assistant Air Traffic Division Manager, Southern

Region, Federal Aviation Administration, prepared statement of ............ 23

Olsen, Curt, Timber Management Operations, Avon Park Air Force

Range, Avon Park, FL, prepared statement of ........................................... 32

Putnam, Hon. Adam H., a Representative in Congress from the State

of Florida, prepared statement of ................................................................ 7

Shays, Hon. Christopher, a Representative in Congress from the State

of Connecticut, prepared statement of ........................................................ 3

Thompson, Lt. Col. Earle R., USAF, Commander, 347 Rescue Wing, Det

1 & Avon Park AFR, MacDill AFB, Florida, prepared statement of ........ 13

(1)

SUSTAINING CRITICAL MILITARY TRAINING

FACILITIES: AVON PARK AIR FORCE RANGE

SATURDAY, AUGUST 4, 2001

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY, VETERANS

AFFAIRS AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM, Avon Park, FL.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 11:04 a.m., at the

Avon Park Air Force Range, Avon Park, FL, Hon. Christopher

Shays (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Shays and Putnam.

Staff present: Lawrence J. Halloran, staff director and counsel;

Grace Washbourne, professional staff member, full committee; and

Jason M. Chung, clerk.

Mr. SHAYS. The Subcommittee on National Security, Veterans Affairs and International Relations hearing entitled, ‘‘Sustaining

Critical Military Training Facilities: Avon Park Air Force Range’’ is called to order.

Good morning, everyone and thank you for being here.

My name is Christopher Shays. In Congress, I represent Connecticut’s 4th District, the southwest part of the State, and I serve

as chairman of this Government Reform subcommittee. Your very

able representative, Adam Putnam, serves as our vice chairman,

and it is at his request that we convene this hearing today.

I want to thank him for having us in his district and for all his

hard work on the subcommittee. As I think you must know, Adam

is a very intelligent young man, and in many ways mature beyond

his years. When he chairs the subcommittee, he shows the steady

hand, the quick wit and the cool head of a veteran member. In fact,

I sometimes think he may be getting a little too good at it and he

may not get the gavel back. That is why it is on the right side.

[Laughter.]

But he has quickly become an important contributor to our oversight work and we, Republicans and Democrats alike, truly value

his service.

We are an oversight panel, which means we do not write laws

or appropriate money. We examine Federal programs to make sure

they operate as efficiently and effectively as possible.

Last May, the full Government Reform Committee began examining a number of issues broadly termed ‘‘encroachment’’ that limit

the use of the land, sea lanes and airspace needed for realistic combat training. The proximity of local housing and commercial development, over-flight and noise restrictions, the complexity of enviVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:11 Oct 10, 2002 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\81854.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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ronmental compliance, air traffic congestion and conflicts over use

of radio frequency spectrum were cited as significant factors constraining the quality and quantity of military training at U.S.-

based facilities.

Testimony also suggested that successful resolution of many encroachment issues depends on close cooperation between military

and civilian leadership and effective community relations on the

part of training facility managers.

Our purpose this morning is to bring that discussion to sharper

focus by examining encroachment issues in the context of a specific

training facility, the Avon Park Air Force Range. The record of

these proceedings will be available to our committee colleagues,

and ultimately to the public, and the testimony we hear today will

help form the basis of our findings and recommendations to sustain, expand and improve critical training facilities such as this facility.

The planned closure of the Navy’s facility at Vieques, Puerto

Rico, and the need for increased training sorties to accommodate

force transformations and the introduction of new airframes, suggest the Avon Park Range could assume a larger, not smaller, role

in future military training. In that event, encroachment issues associated with current and potential range uses will have to be managed successfully to integrate military training requirements with

local civilian economic development plans.

We look to our witnesses for a candid discussion of range management issues at Avon Park and for their assessment of efforts to

sustain the range as an important military facility and an integral

part of the area economy.

At this time, I would like to call on the vice chairman of this

committee and I would say to you something that I have never said

to Adam—this would probably please his parents. You know, when

you are a new Member of Congress, your mother or dad sometimes

thinks that maybe some day you will become President. And I

would tell you that when you get to be about 55, you realize that

will never happen. So then you think, well, you know, I probably

know someone some day who may become President. And I looked

around at all the Members and he is one of the people on my list

of five. So some day I will be able to tell my grandchildren that I

was chairman when there was a member of my committee who was

vice chairman, who is now your President. Mr. President. [Laughter and applause.]

[The prepared statement of Hon. Christopher Shays follows:]

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Mr. PUTNAM. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, thank you very much

for that very kind introduction and thank you for holding this important hearing. Avon Park Air Force Range is a cornerstone of

economic development in the heartland of Florida and is vital to

our national security.

The military needs to train, it needs to practice the missions it

may be called upon to perform if commanded by our national leadership to defend our Nation’s interests. This training needs to be

as tough and as realistic as possible. A soldier once put it best

when he said ‘‘Train hard, fight easy . . . and win. Train easy,

fight hard . . . and die.’’ We owe it to the men and women who

put their lives on the line to defend our homes and our national

interest, to give them the opportunity to train as hard as they

need, to come back as live winners.

For almost 60 years, Avon Park has served our Nation in training the aviation arms of all three service branches as well as artillery and special operations forces. The climate provides our troops

the ability to conduct their training year-round. We welcome units

from all over the Nation that can use Avon Park while their home

bases are socked in by winter weather. Avon Park Air Force Range

is the largest facility of its kind east of the Mississippi and one of

the most flexible training areas available to our armed forces, with

a wide variety of terrain and facilities available that all services

can use to hone their warfighting skills. Both our active forces and

the Florida National Guard use it extensively, and with the Special

Operations Command, the Southern Command, and the Central

Command, all headquartered in Florida, it only makes sense to

maximize their use here in Avon Park. Particularly now as it appears that the continued use of Vieques is uncertain, this committee and the military should examine what missions could be added

to Avon Park. Even our allies are looking for new, realistic training

facilities. Just this past week Jane’s Defence Weekly reported that

the Israeli Ministry of Defense has requested a permanent training

base in the United States in order to conduct realistic combat exercises and train for long-range air strikes.

Avon Park has done well in coordinating its military activities

with its civilian neighbors. The relationship it has with the Sebring

Airport, the Avon Park Correctional Institution, the ranchers who

lease grazing rights for their cattle, the hunters and fishermen who

use the area, the managers of the State Park, and the foresters

have been notable for the degree of cooperation involved. There are

no major conflicts over environmental stewardship issues. I look

forward to discussing with our witnesses how this has been accomplished and how it might be used as an example for other bases.

The real-time air traffic control system in use by the Range and civilian air traffic controllers is a model of military-civilian cooperation.

There is always room for improvement. The Federal Aviation Administration should also proactively cooperate with the Avon Park

military authorities to protect the range’s special use airspace from

vertical encroachment. In a fast-growing area such as ours, bringing all of the stakeholders, including the military, into the planning

of new construction at local airports, high rise buildings, television,

cellular and radio towers and other structures that might encroach

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on the bombing range, military operating areas and training

routes, is important to safety and to maximizing usage. Everyone

needs to be kept in the loop so that potential problems can be

worked out in advance before they cost money or jeopardize training.

Mr. Chairman, I look forward to our witnesses’ testimony so that

the subcommittee can examine how Avon Park Air Force Range

has served our Nation and our community and can continue to

serve our 21st century defense needs.

On a personal note, Mr. Chairman, it is good to be home and I

welcome you to the 12th District of Florida.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Adam H. Putnam follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. Thank you very much.

Let me get some housekeeping done. I ask unanimous consent

that all members of the subcommittee be permitted to place any

opening statement in the record and the record remain open for 3

days for that purpose. And without objection, so ordered.

I ask further unanimous consent that all witnesses be permitted

to include their written statements in the record. And without objection, so ordered.

I am going to recognize our witnesses, I will then swear them in

and then I am just going to have an announcement about how we

are going to proceed, before we take testimony.

We have six witnesses in our panel: Lieutenant Colonel Earle R.

Thompson, U.S. Air Force, Commander, 347th Rescue Wing, Detachment 1 and Avon Park Air Force Range; Lieutenant Colonel

Charles Golden, Operations and Plan Officer, Florida National

Guard, Camp Blanding; Ronald Liszt, Acting Assistant Air Traffic

Division Manager, Southern Region, Federal Aviation Administration [FAA]; Mr. Steven Handley, rancher and councilman, city of

Avon Park; Mr. Curt Olsen, Timber Management Operations, Avon

Park Air Force Range; Mr. Dale Landress, Warden, Avon Park Corrections Institution.

Let me just announce as well, besides this panel, here is what

we are going to do. After the invited testimony and our guests on

the panel are finished and we have asked them questions, we will

use the remaining time to hear from anyone in the audience who

would like to address the issues under discussion. We will not

swear you in, but we will ask you to sign one of the forms available

in the back so the court reporter will have you name and we will

know where to send the transcript.

So after the panel concludes and we have asked the questions,

we will invite anyone who would like to make some comments. And

we will see first, before I figure out how much time you have, how

many people would like that opportunity.

So let me administer the oath, invite all of you, please, to stand

and we will swear you in.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. SHAYS. Note for the record that all of our witnesses responded in the affirmative. Let me say that it is a practice of the

Government Reform Committee, being an investigative committee,

that we swear all our witnesses in. I only chickened out once when

Senator Bird came to the committee and I did not swear him in.

But that is the only one who I have not sworn in. All other Senators and Congressmen have.

But it is a privilege to be here today and it is a privilege to have

your testimony and we expect that we will learn a good deal—I certainly will—and I thank you all for participating and we are going

to go right down the row.

This is what we are going to do, your statements have been, true

to the request, fairly concise. I am going to have the clock on for

5 minutes. If you go over 5 minutes, I am going to roll it over again

and I do not think any of you would go the full 10. So I cannot even

begin to say if you went to 10 what would happen. [Laughter.]

So, 5 minutes and you will see a red light and then I will flip

it to 5 again.

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Colonel Thompson, you have the floor.

STATEMENTS OF LT. COL. EARLE R. THOMPSON, USAF, COMMANDER, 347 RESCUE WING, DET 1 & AVON PARK AFR,

MACDILL AFB, FLORIDA; LT. COL. CHARLES GOLDEN, OPERATIONS AND PLAN OFFICER, FLORIDA NATIONAL GUARD,

CAMP BLANDING, STARK, FL; RONALD J. LISZT, ACTING ASSISTANT AIR TRAFFIC DIVISION MANAGER, SOUTHERN REGION, FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION; STEVE

HANDLEY, RANCHER/COUNCILMAN, CITY OF AVON PARK, FL;

CURT OLSEN, TIMBER MANAGEMENT OPERATIONS, AVON

PARK AIR FORCE RANGE, AVON PARK, FL; AND DALE

LANDRESS, WARDEN, AVON PARK CORRECTIONAL INSTITUTION, AVON PARK, FL

Lt. Col. THOMPSON. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, Congressman

Putnam. Thank you for the opportunity today to speak to you on

the unique challenges we have here at Avon Park Air Force Range

in managing our ranges and the airspace that we also feel is very

vital to the Air Force’s combat readiness.

Maintaining access to these ranges and the airspace is very important to us if we are to continue building the combat-ready forces

to decisively engage our adversaries. Combat and combat support

units from all services in the Department of Defense, including the

U.S. Coast Guard, utilize Avon Park Air Force Range for readiness

training activities. Additionally, we also support public use and

recreation activities on our range.

As you mentioned, we are uniquely positioned to allow access

from many avenues, both from the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic,

not to mention the land access that we have. Our range is comprised of about 106,000 acres and we have got vertical spaces that

we can extend up to 31,000 feet when we work closely with the

FAA. The dimensions of our range permit the weapons employment

tactics driven from our lessons that we learned in Desert Storm

and Operation Allied Force and the new standoff weapons technology that is emerging today. Our range has the space to allow

those weapons to be utilized out here. Avon Park Range personnel

work closely with other users of the airspace to deconflict range

airspace usage with other competing demands. We also work real

time with the Miami Center to ensure that airspace is available to

airlines and the public as much as possible. We have had this coordination center with Miami Center in place for a number of years

and to date our efforts have been very good in that regard.

Our ability to modify our range and airspace to accommodate

new training needs to be ensured. However, the legal and procedural requirements are becoming very complicated and time-consuming for us to do that. One item that needs to be monitored

closely, we feel, is the potential for portions of the range to be designated as critical habitat under the Endangered Species Act.

When critical habitat is designated we are required to consult with

the relevant regulatory agency to make sure that any changes in

our range activities do not adversely affect the modification of the

critical habitat area. The key to addressing those critical habitat

issues is to have the adequate science and good communication in

place and have our good relationships that we currently have with

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our neighbors and regulators. And that will enable us to develop

cooperative strategies that allow us still to accomplish our mission.

At Avon Park Air Force Range, we have the good fortune to have

sufficient area around us that protects us from encroachment concerns, but we do have a few challenges in this area. We have

worked very hard to mitigate community concerns by developing

resolutions that resolve the conflict while ensuring good access to

our range. As an example, one area just to the north of us that has

seen quite a bit of development, had a bombing pattern that

overflew a housing area. Some of the individuals in that area complained about the noise and because of this, we modified our pattern at no loss to training and we have alleviated all of those noise

issues in that area.

Another issue is the large amount of wetlands on Avon Park Air

Force Range and we are also home to 12 endangered species. By

entering into inter-agency consultation processes, proposed range

modifications are harmonized to protect those wetlands and the endangered species. Our installation has implemented a comprehensive fire management program that minimizes our change of having fire losses. We do have the fires that we saw today, this morning, that happen just from lightning strikes out there, but our efforts there have made that minimal.

Cooperative efforts with the State have also been very successful.

Large tracts of land to the east and west of our range have been

acquired by the State of Florida to serve as conservation lands.

And they also at this time are studying the feasibility of acquiring

property to the northern boundary that will help us with future encroachment issues to the north. The State of Florida, we feel, has

been very proactive in this regard and continues to help us.

Another issue is the range operations with unexploded ordnance.

We have been in operation since World War II in one form or another and have a wide variety of munitions that have been employed on the range. Air Combat Command has got a very comprehensive set of policy directives that will ensure our long-term

sustainability and safety of personnel on the range. We have a

range residue removal contract that last year—or this year in fiscal

2001, ACC budgeted $230,000 to recycle and safe all of our training

sub munitions in the range’s holding areas. The Defense Reutilization and Management Office we are working with to remove about

1.5—between 1.5 and 1.8 million pounds of residue from the range.

Unfortunately, a lot of that effort is funded through our operations

and training budget, and that decreases other training opportunities that we would have.

In summary, maintaining our edge in air combat is directly

linked to robust training capabilities and those capabilities depend

upon continued access to the range and airspace. Avon Park Air

Force Range serves our warfighters well. We need to continue to

work closely with the community to ensure that we have the operational flexibility, efficiency and realism of readiness training on

this range, while minimizing the impacts on the mission that affect

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the community and the environment. Your kind consideration of

these comments and your interest in Avon Park Air Force Range

is deeply appreciated. Thank you for the opportunity to speak

today.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you, Colonel.

Colonel Golden.

[The prepared statement of Lt. Col. Thompson follows:]

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Lt. Col. GOLDEN. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Putnam.

Sir, I would like to let my written statement serve as my opening

statement here today.

The only caveat being that Florida National Guard considers

Avon Park Bombing Range a strategic asset for us, primarily because of the distance that our units would have to travel to the

only other facility in north Florida at Camp Blanding. To us, the

viability of Avon Park in the future is very distinct in our needs.

That is all I have to say, sir.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you, Colonel.

Mr. Liszt, welcome. Your mic is on.

[The prepared statement of Lt. Col. Golden follows:]

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Mr. LISZT. Chairman Shays and Congressman Putnam, thank

you for the opportunity to appear before you today on behalf of Administrator Garvey to discuss access to airspace issues relevant to

military operations in general and Avon Park Air Force Range in

particular.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Liszt, I am just going to ask a question—can you

hear in the back?

Mr. LISZT. I would like to briefly outline how the FAA and the

military services work together to manage our responsibilities in a

way that affords the most safe and efficient use of the national airspace system for both military and civilian aircraft.

The FAA is the single manager of the airspace in the United

States. Our primary mission and responsibility is to operate a common system of air traffic control and navigation for both civil and

military aircraft, while maintaining the highest standards of safety. Our fundamental charter from Congress includes direction to

give full consideration to the requirements of national defense as

well as commercial and general aviation, a direction that we take

very seriously. We have a close day-to-day working relationship

with the armed services, aided by the presence of military personnel who work along with us in FAA offices both at Washington

headquarters and in most regions of the country. These military

personnel represent their individual services—Army, Navy, Marines and Air Force—at working group level meetings in order to

ensure that their interests and perspective are known and considered by the FAA. And vice versa, FAA personnel are stationed at

important military commands to ensure that the FAA interests are

taken into account by the Department of Defense. At a more senior

level, DOD has established the Policy Board on Federal Aviation as

its highest level conduit to the FAA to discuss and dispose of matters of mutual concern and interest. Currently the Board is headed

by a former FAA official. We find that this approach—to have both

liaison representatives at a working, staff level, as well as a senior

policy board—promotes a very cooperative and successful working

relationship between the FAA and DOD.

One of the primary ways we aid the military in accomplishing

their national defense mission is to designate airspace for military

training and testing. We do this by identifying what is known as

special use airspace to accommodate military activity. By designating this airspace, it serves to protect other users of the airspace

system—for example, commercial airlines and general aviation—

and provides for safe and orderly operations within the national

airspace system between civil and military users. DOD submits

proposals to establish or modify special use airspace based on its

mission requirements. Throughout the United States and off our

coasts, there are over 900 special use airspace designations. Some

designations are more restrictive than others. In reviewing a request for a special use airspace, we present the proposal to the

public for comment and complete an aeronautical study, which assesses the impact of the designation on other users of the airspace.

Under a memorandum of understanding between the FAA and

DOD, DOD is the lead agency for required environmental reviews

and assessments for proposals it initiates. We then make a decision

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about the designation after considering national defense requirements together with the needs of other users.

With regard to the Avon Park Air Force Range, a portion of its

airspace has been designated as restricted special use airspace. The

current designation has been in place since 1963. The restricted

category means that civil flights, while not wholly prohibited, are

subject to restrictions at certain times due to the hazardous activities by military flights or ground operations.

In establishing the special use airspace designations, it is our

policy to promote joint use of the special use airspace as much as

possible, allowing for use by civil aircraft when it is needed for

military missions. We also subdivide or stratify the special use airspace in order to enhance joint use by military and civil aircraft.

This approach enables us to make the most efficient use of the national airspace system while accommodating national defense requirements. For example, at Avon Park, several changes have been

made over the years concerning the times of military use and subdivision of the airspace resulting in better access by civilian aircraft to the otherwise restricted space. The interface between the

military and civilian use of the airspace surrounding Avon Park is

a good example of how both types of operations can be accommodated safely and efficiently.

Congress has directed us, along with DOD, to build on this joint

use of special use airspace to develop a system to share information

about the near real time use of such airspace. This will enable

greater access to areas that otherwise would be restricted for large

spans of time. To this end, DOD is developing the Military Airspace Management System while the FAA has deployed the Special

Use Airspace Management System that will provide more timely

information to users. For example, the designated hours of restriction for the special use airspace at Avon Park extend for most of

the day Monday through Friday. The practice in the past has been

that if there are no planned military operations for the entire period, the special use airspace is made available for civil aircraft

use. With better near real time information available through these

new data systems about what military operations are actually taking place on a particular day or part of the day or even hour of the

day, DOD and FAA will be able to adjust access to the space accordingly.

In summary, the FAA and DOD have a successful partnership in

making sure the efficient and safe operation of the national airspace system accommodates both military and civilian uses. I assure you that the FAA and DOD will continue to work hard on a

day-to-day basis to coordinate our respective missions and responsibilities. This will further enhance military training necessary for

our national defense and access for commercial and general aviation to the national airspace system.

Mr. Chairman, that concludes my remarks. I will be happy to answer any questions you may have.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you, Mr. Liszt.

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Mr. Handley, you are going to be recognized next for your statement. I am going to encourage you to put the mic closer. We will

have your mics off for now. Thank you. Wonderful to have you

here.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Liszt follows:]

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Mr. HANDLEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Congressman Putnam;

thank you for allowing me to testify today.

Today I am wearing two hats. I am a cattle lessee on the bombing range and have been for 20 years. I worked for and with other

cattle lessees for 5 to 7 years prior to being a cattle lessee myself

here.

If you would accept my written statement.

Mr. SHAYS. We will do that.

Mr. HANDLEY. And also if I could enter into testimony a tape produced by the Florida Department of Agriculture, and a lot of the

footage was shot here on the bombing range on grazing public

lands.

Mr. SHAYS. Without objection, we will include that in the record.

Mr. HANDLEY. Thank you.

Also, I would like to say that I have been a partner as well as

other people, other lessees on this range for the entire time that

there has been cattle on the range. We have a very close working

relationship with the military. We have good procedures in place

for our safe entrance and exit of the military training exercise

areas. I currently have a lease on one of the ranges where ordnance

is delivered, and I graze that range. In the past 20 years, there

have been very few incidents that have not been able to be resolved

and I would like to say that we have been good stewards. The environmental regulations, in my opinion have been exemplary and

they have followed—the Air Force has followed everything and we

have been a partner with them.

Changing hats, as a city councilman of Avon Park, I would like

to say that if we have a change in mission at the range, then I

would hope it would help improve our economic development and

possibly increase job opportunities for the citizens of Avon Park

and local communities.

Thank you very much for your time and thank you for having

me.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you, Mr. Handley, very much.

Mr. Olsen. And we are going to move that mic over. Is that still

on? There we go.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Handley follows:]

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Mr. OLSEN. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen and Members

of Congress. I am honored to have this opportunity to speak before

this congressional hearing. My name is Curt Olsen and I am the

Supervisory Forester of the Forest Management section at the

Avon Park Air Force Range and have been at this installation for

over 24 years.

Mr. SHAYS. Wow.

Mr. OLSEN. Although I primarily deal with forest management

issues, I have a good overall working knowledge regarding most aspects of the Environmental Flight management.

Avon Park Air Force Range has a long history of natural resources management. Since the early 1950’s, the property has been

leased for cattle grazing. In 1952, the Air Force signed a cooperative agreement with the State of Florida allowing for public access

for recreational purposes. Since that time, the natural resources

program has evolved into a multi-disciplinary program involving

programs including forest management, range management, outdoor recreation, wildlife and fire management.

Approximately one half of the installation is occupied with

threatened or endangered species or is potential habitat for these

species. Management by the Environmental Flight has protected

the natural habitat with 54,000 acres identified as being in outstanding condition. In fact, 50 percent of the actual bombing impact areas are considered to be in this condition, suggesting that

military activities have not historically degraded environmental

quality.

The three revenue generating programs—these are forest management, outdoor recreation and range management—provide a yearly income back to the Air Force of approximately $800,000. The

funds are used to support employees’ salaries, scientific research,

prescribed burning, wildfire protection, road maintenance, construction and maintenance of boundary and impact area fences, as

well as the purchase and maintenance of vehicles and heavy equipment.

With many State and Federal threatened and endangered species, wetlands, rare habitats, high public recreational use, commercial forestry, cattle grazing and a military mission, there is potential for conflicts.

The program managers of Environmental Flight work together to

develop a natural resources program that achieves multiple objectives with emphasis on sustaining and enhancing the military mission.

Our adaptive and proactive management of the property has

greatly benefited the Air Force by demonstrating that we are good

stewards of the property and at the same time provide military

training necessary for our national defense.

Over 20 years ago, the State of Florida developed a land acquisition program to purchase environmentally sensitive lands. The

Avon Park Air Force Range was identified as a critical hot spot of

regional biodiversity and the centerpiece for land acquisition in

south central Florida. Substantial properties on our eastern and

western boundaries have been acquired by the State as conservation lands, while much of the property on our north boundary is

currently under consideration for land acquisition.

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Due to the fast rate of growth Florida is experiencing, with these

adjoining conservation purchases, Avon Park Air Force Range

could have potentially been subjected to increasing encroachment

that could ultimately impact military use of the property.

The Environmental Flight prescribe-burns approximately 25,000

acres of habitat every year. Without this management practice, the

fuel loads would be extremely high and fires started from military

missions would be much more frequent and harder to suppress.

There would also be a greater chance of fires getting out of control

and spreading off the property. If this should happen, the Air Force

could be held liable for such action. Prescribed burning is also necessary to protect the $20 million of forest resources and to manage

the fire adapted flora and fauna on the installation. Without fire,

many of the environmental attributes that make Avon Park a

unique ecosystem would eventually disappear.

The primary goal of the Forest Management Section is to maintain a healthy forest in a way that benefits the ecological community and the Air Force. We provide direct benefit back to the Air

Force by using funds generated from the sale of timber resources

to support services that assist the military mission.

Recently we removed timber from 10 different locations requested by the Army National Guard for training sites for their

multiple launch rocket systems. For this fiscal year that we are in

right now, we will produce a total of $430,000 from the sale of forest resources. After our expenses, we will generate a profit in excess of $173,000 of which 40 percent or almost $69,000, will be distributed back to Highlands County and Polk County to be used for

public schools and roads.

The Outdoor Recreation Program averages 40,000 public visitor days per year and generates approximately $250,000 in the sale of

various permits. The program provides many recreational activities

such as hunting, fishing, camping, hiking and bird watching, just

to mention a few. The program supports the mission by providing

law enforcement to control illegal trespass.

The Range Management Program generates $147,000 from the

lease of native pastureland for cattle grazing. The installation is divided into nine leases, each lease is divided into separate pastures

and cattle are rotated according to guidelines determined by the

rangeland specialist. Cattle grazing also helps control vegetation

and fuel loads, thereby reducing the fire potential. Funds from this

program are used to build and maintain boundary fences around

the installation and, most importantly, along active impact areas.

The Wildlife Management Program is responsible for managing

and monitoring fauna population of both listed and non-listed species on the installation. The program also ensures that military

training and other natural resources programs do not violate State

or Federal law.

In conclusion, the Avon Park Air Force Range is a unique military and environmental showcase. The Air Force has shown that

through team work, military training can be conducted in an environmentally friendly manner.

Finally, I would like to express my personal appreciation to the

Operations Flight here on the range for their cooperation in managing this unique environment. Thank you.

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Mr. SHAYS. Thank you, Mr. Olsen.

I was just thinking when you were mentioning bird watching, if

I were out there, I would be looking for gators, not birds. [Laughter.]

Mr. Landress.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Olsen follows:]

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Mr. LANDRESS. Mr. Chairman, as one of the few remaining natives of Avon Park, I would like to welcome you to this area. We

are certainly happy to have you and we look forward to our visit

here.

Mr. SHAYS. Now Mr. Landress, let us ’fess up. Your folks must

have been from Michigan or Ohio, or Connecticut?

Mr. LANDRESS. Well, my folks were. [Laughter.]

Mr. SHAYS. OK.

Mr. LANDRESS. I would like to express my sincere appreciation

to this subcommittee and to Congressman Putnam for the invitation to testify concerning the interaction between Avon Park Correctional Institution and the Avon Park Air Force Range.

Four months ago, I assumed the duties as Warden of our correctional facility. This is my third tour of duty as Warden of Avon

Park Correctional Institution, having served during 1985 to 1987

and 1993 to 1995. I have a good understanding and respect for the

mission of our correctional facility as well as the mission of the

Avon Park Air Force Range.

During my time as warden at Avon Park Correctional Institution, I have had the opportunity to interact with four different base

commanders, including Lieutenant Colonel Earle Thompson, Jr.,

the current commander. A spirit of cooperation and mutual respect

has always existed between our agencies.

For over 43 years, the Department of Corrections and the Air

Force have coexisted as good neighbors and friends. We have

shared resources and personnel to accomplish our missions. In the

past, utilizing inmate labor, we have assisted the Air Force, the

Department of Natural Resources in completing numerous projects.

Additionally, our agency provides security at the entrance gate.

Our officers man this post 24 hours a day 7 days a week.

In the 1950’s, the Department of Corrections was facing an overcrowding problem. To alleviate this over-crowding, the Department

searched the State for possible prisonsites, finally selecting the

former Federal Bureau of Prison facility located at Avon Park Air

Force Base. The Federal prison was active until 1953 when it was

closed. Since the Bureau of Prisons still held the lease, the State

of Florida subleased the property in 1957 and the Avon Park Correctional Institution began.

For approximately 15 years, the State leased the property from

the U.S. Government. In the early 1970’s, the leased property was

declared surplus and the U.S. Department of Health, Education

and Welfare, donated 143 acres to the State of Florida to use as

a State prison. Shortly thereafter, the State purchased an additional 455 acres from the Federal Government.

In accepting the donated property, the State agreed to maintain

the wastewater and potable water systems. It also agreed to provide road maintenance from the main gate through our property.

Mr. SHAYS. Got a little work on that area. [Laughter.]

Mr. LANDRESS. I am going to address that shortly.

Mr. SHAYS. OK.

Mr. LANDRESS. At one time, the State owned and maintained the

electrical delivery system. Recently, we transferred ownership to

the Peace River Electric Cooperative, who is now responsible for

maintaining that system.

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It should be noted that the attorneys from the Department of

Corrections and the Air Force have begun a dialog to determine the

Department’s obligation as a result of the Federal Government donating the property.

Recently, Joel Anderson, our Department’s Deputy Director of

Administration and I met with Lieutenant Colonel Thompson to

discuss several issues. At that time, Mr. Anderson indicated that

our Department would set a priority to resurface the entrance road

from the main gate through our property. In conversations with

him a couple of days ago, he indicated that engineers have been

hired to prepare bids and hopefully that process is moving along.

The Avon Park Correctional Institution is a major facility of the

Florida Department of Corrections. From 1957 to 1978, the institution housed over 700 minimum custody inmates in 18 old dormitories which served as barracks during World War II. In 1977,

a close custody unit was constructed to house 542 inmates.

In 1992, it became obvious to the Department that the antiquated buildings in the old unit had outlived their usefulness and

a new facility was built and those were torn down.

For the protection of the public, people who work here at the

range and our own staff who life on the property, our perimeter is

encompassed by a double fence with eight rolls of razor ribbon on

the inside of the outer fence, two rolls on top of the inner fence and

two perimeter alert systems; one a microphonics system which is

on the fence which detects motion and then we have a microwave

system between the fences. We also maintain armed roving patrols.

There is currently one issue I think that all of us here would

think would be a serious concern and that has to do with the

bridge over Arbuckle Creek. We have discussed this issue with

Congressman Putnam and this bridge is in a bad state of repair.

Polk County technically owns the property, they provide minor repairs, but we are in an area that is away from Polk County. You

have to come through Highlands County to get to this little nick

of Polk County, but there is a lot of large semis, military vehicles,

tankers. And one of these days, we are going to have a serious

problem. I am not sure what this committee can do, but that problem needs to be addressed at some level.

In conclusion, I believe the Air Force Range is a model for land

utilization. I hope that the subcommittee will continue to support

the mission of the Air Force, as they attempt to expand, and all

the other government agencies who utilize the property, as well as

the thousands of citizens who use the property for recreational purposes.

I would like to thank you again for allowing me to share a few

comments.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Landress follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. Thank you, Mr. Landress.

Truth be told, this hearing is really a subterfuge to get us here

to talk about making sure you maintain those roads well.

Mr. LANDRESS. Oh, I have been catching enough heat already,

Congressman, I did not need you to come down here——

Mr. SHAYS. I mean I heard the words ‘‘set a priority,’’ hopefully

that process is moving along. I mean, those are dangerous words.

I am teasing you.

Mr. LANDRESS. I know.

Mr. SHAYS. At this time, the Chair would recognize Mr. Putnam

and we will proceed to have questions.

If you are curious, the way we do it back home when we have

more Members, is we have a 5-minute rule for Members and we

go to different Members. Sometimes we do the same rollover, 10

minutes. But given that we are in friendly country here, we are

turning off the clock now, Mr. Putnam.

Mr. PUTNAM. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I appreciate the testimony of the witnesses. You can tell that we

are outside of the beltway when people let their written statements

stand as the only thing that they feel like they need to say. We appreciate the brevity.

Mr. Handley, as a city councilman—that is the hat that I would

like you to put on for this question—the Department of Defense did

an economic impact study for the range that estimates the economic impact on Highlands County to be nearly $70 million. Do

you see that in the community? Do the merchants and businessmen feel the impact of the range and what is the sense of the

neighborliness among the neighboring communities about the

range?

Mr. HANDLEY. Traditionally, Congressman Putnam, Avon Park,

the city of Avon Park, relied very heavily on the range when they

were flying sorties every day from 8 until 10 p.m., and there was

a lot of military people here. And the support in the community

has been, in my opinion, great for the Avon Park Air Force Range

and we look forward to continuing that and I think that it would

be very beneficial to the local communities. And I think that it

has—to Highlands County itself, yes, we welcome the activities.

Mr. PUTNAM. Is there a standing advisory committee or community relations committee that meets on a frequent basis between

the military officials and the surrounding communities? Is there a

group of Chamber folks that meet on a routine basis to talk about

the future of the range?

Mr. HANDLEY. I would have to defer that question to the colonel.

Mr. PUTNAM. Colonel Thompson.

Lt ColTHOMPSON. There is not, that I am aware of, sir, a standing committee with the local governing authorities. However, we do

have a standing committee that deals with environmental issues

that includes people from as far north as Lake Wales and down

into Sebring. And we had our last meeting at the Sebring Airport

Authority’s facility. We make sure—and they kind of help us as a

watchdog, if you will, to make sure that we are complying with all

the environmental concerns we have here.

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Mr. PUTNAM. Mr. Olsen, I believe you stated in your testimony,

but how much in outside revenue does the range generate through

its environmental stewardship activities?

Mr. OLSEN. The total program generates about $800,000 from the

three programs.

Mr. PUTNAM. That is generated onsite.

Mr. OLSEN. On site, correct.

Mr. PUTNAM. That is not Pentagon money, that is not DOD

money.

Mr. OLSEN. No, that is exactly what is brought into—from the

sale of timber, permits for hunting, fishing, camping, things like

that and revenue we get like from Mr. Handley for leasing native

lands for grazing.

Mr. PUTNAM. And does all of that stay here or does it get sent

back to Washington?

Mr. OLSEN. No, it does not get sent back to Washington. Every

program is a little bit different how they deal with the money; but

generally yes, the money does go back to the program.

Mr. PUTNAM. So the money generated here through these multiple use management arrangements are put back into the property.

Mr. OLSEN. Generally speaking; yes, sir. They usually go back— in our case, they will go up to Langley Air Force Base or they are

distributed for the next year’s budget.

Mr. PUTNAM. OK. Now Colonel Golden, the guardsmen who train

here at the range, are they mostly from units that are from central

and south Florida?

Lt. Col. GOLDEN. Yes, sir, pretty much.

Mr. PUTNAM. So how much do they save in maintenance and gas

and time if you are only dealing with a weekend training window

by not having to drive to Camp Blanding?

Lt. Col. GOLDEN. Sir, depending on the location of the unit, if it

is—particularly units that are located down in the Miami area,

they save approximately—coming to Avon Park versus going to

Camp Blanding—probably about 6 hours of windshield time. Of

course the fuel consumption is of course a plus, but primarily the

other thing that we really appreciate about being able to be down

here is the fact that you do not have troops out driving on the road,

that is additional safety problems that you have got too. So it is

less wear and tear on the equipment and a lot more training time.

Mr. PUTNAM. Thank you.

Colonel Thompson, the range, as evidenced by the testimony, appears to have a good working relationship with its neighbors and

with the different governmental entities that come into play when

you are managing these types of encroachment issues. How have

you been able to work on the airspace issue with the FAA and the

surrounding airports? Where do you see that relationship heading?

Lt. Col. THOMPSON. Well I think we have, as I previously stated,

a very good relationship with the FAA and the local airports in the

area. My deputy, Mr. Cutshell, has been the airspace manager for

this area on the military side for quite awhile. He has a very good

personal relationship with the people——

Mr. SHAYS. Colonel, is your mic on?

Lt. Col. THOMPSON. I believe it is.

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Mr. SHAYS. Just pull it a little closer.

Lt. Col. THOMPSON. And that has allowed us to have this real

time system we have when we utilize the range airspace. In addition, Mr. Mike Willingham down at the Sebring Airport, they are

in the process of looking at possible expansion down there and possibly putting in an additional runway. Early on, they brought us

into the planning process to discuss that with them because, depending on how they are going to lay out that particular runway

could significantly have some impact on the southern portion of our

range, in the MOA area, the military operating area to the south.

But they had the foresight to bring us in early on that and make

sure we address those issues before they get too far along in the

planning process.

Mr. PUTNAM. When you view the utilization of this range on a

365-day basis where are some areas where you can increase utilization, what types of training missions best fit this range’s profile,

and what impact do you think the potential closing of Vieques

would have on the mission here?

Lt. Col. THOMPSON. Well, as far as our training opportunities

right now, as has been previously stated, I think Mr. Handley said

it, when MacDill had an F–16 training base there, the range was

much more utilized than it is now. There has been some additional

units in the last few years that have shut down, most notably the

fighter wing at Moody is no longer there, there is now a rescue

wing there. And we are training with the rescue element there but

we do not have the fighter sorties coming down here that we had

previously. We have air time and range time right now that if the

Navy were to enter into talks with us, we could certainly discuss

with them and we are ready to discuss with them the opportunities

for them to utilize our range and our airspace. It is just a matter

of working out the details with them and as long as it fits in our

range mission and our environmental concerns, we should be able

to accommodate most of their training here.

Mr. PUTNAM. Are you geographically situated for carrier-based

forces to train here?

Lt. Col. THOMPSON. We feel we are, sir. They could set a carrier

in the Atlantic or the Gulf of Mexico and access the range either

through high level ingresses at altitude or we have approximately

14 low level routes that terminate on the Avon Park Air Force

Range and they could enter it that way. So we do not feel coming

in from either coast would be a problem for them.

Mr. PUTNAM. Thank you, Colonel.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back.

Mr. SHAYS. I thank the gentleman. I have a number of questions

that I would like to ask. I would like to first start with you, Colonel

Thompson and ask, the utilization of the range right now, can you

quantify it? Is it used 10 percent of the time, is it used—you know,

how would you quantify the usage right now?

Lt. Col. THOMPSON. It is kind of difficult to do that, sir. I will

give you a round-about answer on that.

Mr. SHAYS. OK.

Lt. Col. THOMPSON. In 1992, when we closed the F–16 training

unit at MacDill, the utilization went down tremendously on this

range. And that is what Air Combat Command kind of looks at

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when they talk about the utilization on this range. But what you

have got to take into account there also is post-Desert Storm, we

were in a drawdown mode so throughout the combat air forces in

the Air Force, there has been a utilization drop in all the ranges.

This range had a fairly dramatic drop and I would say we are probably operating now about 15 to 20 percent of the level we were operating at when MacDill had a training unit there. I may be off on

that, but that is off the top of my head.

Mr. SHAYS. I tell people that being a Member of Congress is like

being asked to go to a large university, take every course and get

a passing grade. Every day we learn new things and one of the

things that I had not thought of, we are over-utilized in the number of bases that we have and that is a waste of resources. But my

sense is that if we come to grips with that, then there are more

resources for the places that we have open, but what you are saying to me is that what happens to neighboring bases obviously impact you in this facility.

Lt. Col. THOMPSON. Yes, sir.

Mr. SHAYS. But one of the things about this facility that is somewhat unique is that you do have a fairly large footprint and you

do not have some of the encroachment problems that exist elsewhere. So I did not know what to expect, I did not know if coming

down here we would hear a lot of cautious words about let us be

careful what we do here.

The message that seems to be pretty loud and clear from the

panel and even from people I have spoken with privately, this is

an under-utilized facility, it could be used better and you would

like to see that happen.

During certain times, does it get pretty intense here? I mean are

there—when you have a training activity going on, is the mood in

the area a little different?

Lt. Col. THOMPSON. Yes, sir. In October, we are going to have a

large combat search and rescue training exercise here that will basically take over the range for 2 weeks. It will be not 24 hours a

day, but it will run much more than our normal range schedule.

We have those kind of things that happen occasionally, we host National Guard units occasionally. Part of my unit is a deployed unit

complex at MacDill. We can bring a fighter unit into our ramp over

at MacDill and allow them to use the Whiskey 168, which is a

warning area over the Gulf to the west of MacDill and then also

they can turn around and come 15 minutes in this direction and

utilize Avon Park Range. So we really feel like we have got a one

stop shop in that regard for training.

But right now, those would be the exceptions. We have the opportunity to increase that kind of training here.

Mr. SHAYS. Going to you, Mr. Landress, you used a word that

concerned me but was a very honest word and it was the word

‘‘surplus’’ and then the State basically stepped in to take advantage

of this ‘‘surplus’’ space. It seems to me that there is a compatible

use here. I mean the prison system does appear to work in harmony with the other needs, as obviously the prison system is far

enough away.

But my sense is that over time, we are going to consider range

space like this with a large footprint a very valued place and we

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are not going to want to be reckless in terms of calling something

surplus, even if at present it seems to be under-utilized. Even if

this system was not fully utilized for a long time, it represents a

reserve that we should, I think, hopefully protect and I hope that

the military does not begin to see edges of it as surplus, which

kinds of gets me to the whole issue of the FAA.

If Sebring is expanded as it will be, and other local airports,

what are the implications of how that will impact the freedom of

the military to do their exercises without too much restraint in coordination with FAA?

Mr. LISZT. I think the first thing the Colonel spoke to was the

runway configuration, if it is designated properly. And predominantly in Florida, as most of us know, the winds are southeastnorthwest in thunderstorm activity and fronts. So if they correctly

align——

Mr. SHAYS. Just a little louder.

Mr. LISZT. If they correct align those runways, they will not

touch the lateral limits of the current designated space.

Mr. SHAYS. Because we are basically having aircraft come in directly in line with the——

Mr. LISZT. And it will permit you a downwind on the other side

of the airport, away from the range.

Mr. SHAYS. But the position of the airfield landing area is extraordinarily, is your term.

Mr. LISZT. The alignment, yes.

Mr. SHAYS. The alignment.

Mr. LISZT. Yes, sir.

Mr. SHAYS. In Connecticut, literally we try to fly them—when

they come into LaGuardia, we bank them to come over the Sound,

but straight alignment, they come right along the coastal towns. Is

this something—let me come back to you, Colonel Thompson—is

this something that the Air Force is going to pay close attention

to or is this something that could happen, in that before we know

it, we are put at a disadvantage?

Lt. Col. THOMPSON. Well, I believe that in Sebring’s instance,

they are out at the forefront of this issue. They are a number of

years yet from breaking ground and pouring concrete for a new

runway, but early on, they wanted to make sure that we were not

going to have encroachment issues and that our training would not

be affected by instrument approaches into their airfield.

Mr. SHAYS. We have Colonel Wheeless, who is here, who is your

supervisor, he has nine of these facilities to manage. Colonel

Wheeless, I would just like it if you could just stand up so people

could see you here, if anyone wants to ask you a question.

[Colonel Wheeless rises.]

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you.

Colonel, I am just concerned that, you know, you get a promotion, you go somewhere else, Colonel Wheeless goes to other activities. Is there something that is written down that says to your

replacement or Colonel Wheeless’ replacement, you know, if

Sebring is expanded, this is something that we have to pay close

attention to, or is it so obvious that I do not even need to be concerned about it?

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Lt. Col. THOMPSON. That is a valid concern, sir. The beauty of

the operation here at Avon Park Range, out of the whole unit,

there are only four military members in my Command. Everybody

else is Civil Service, and so we have a continuity here at this

range. I have got people here in the employ of Avon Park Range

that have been here, like Mr. Olsen, for 24 years or longer and so

these issues will not easily get dropped.

Mr. SHAYS. Colonel Golden, you said something that would be obvious to someone else, but I am—our committee is kind of getting

into this issue. You talked about travel time. In my simple mind,

I just think of the amount of time it takes a plane to get here. Describe the other support that you need to—I guess they take the

highway here?

Lt. Col. GOLDEN. Yes, sir. And it is troops not only from the

southern part of the State but also from the Orlando area all the

way over to Tampa. Just the savings in dollars to the taxpayers

that we do not have to spend using additional fuel requirements,

maintenance costs on vehicles is critical to us.

Mr. SHAYS. Is your mic on?

Lt. Col. GOLDEN. Yes, sir, I believe so. Without pulling the table

off——

Mr. SHAYS. It will not go any further—good judgment.

Lt. Col. GOLDEN. Yes, sir. The other thing, sir, with the Florida

Guard, what I want to see happen with Avon Park over the years

is that I believe they are in a unique position, just because of the

size of the base. I have got 20 something years in combined arms

stuff and Colonel Thompson has got a nasty little secret, he was

actually in the Army before he got in the Air Force, so—[laughter]—we still treat him the same, but—— Mr. SHAYS. Well, it ain’t a secret now, is it? [Laughter.]

Lt. Col. GOLDEN. I get that $20 from him later—but for us, it is

going to remain critical because of just the cost of the budget, the

budget is downsizing. And the other part is if we go through another round of base closures——

Mr. SHAYS. We will go through another round, we have to.

Lt. Col. GOLDEN. Yes, sir, in 2003. When you reduce the number

of available sites to train, and you do not reduce the force structure

or size, you have to have some place to go to train because it becomes compacted. And I think Avon Park in the future is going to

have an opportunity to take some of that compaction and spread

it out down here for not just the Navy or the Air Force, but for all

branches. You should see an increase in the number of just combined branches of the service coming here to train all the time.

Mr. SHAYS. One thing that is fairly clear to me, that even when

you close down some bases and you allow the State or the local

community to consider it surplus property that they should purchase, we do not want to do that to our ranges, because we may

come back—even if a range—and this is not just a hearing on what

happens at Avon Park, it is a hearing about what happens in all

our potential ranges. But if some range is ultimately so under-utilized as to not be deemed cost effective to keep it open, I think Congress—and this is something I would like the staff to take a good

look at—that should be warehoused space because we may come

back years later and say, you know, we need this place.

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One of the things that I think that Adam can share with you as

well as I can, the longer we are in this position, the more people

in the military, active and the Reserves and the National Guard

and veterans, the more sensitized we become to the extraordinary

gratitude we feel for our military and for their service. But the obligation that we have to make sure they never go into battle without

superior equipment, the best training in the world and the most realistic training. And to give them superior equipment without the

training is just a dereliction of our duty. So we just need to make

sure we have the sites.

I would love to just ask you, Mr. Handley—I feel a little more

affinity toward you only because you are a politician—[laughter]— you may not want to acknowledge that in this community, but you

are, be proud of it.

Describe to me, if you would—not to bring controversy in here,

but there must be constituents who say, you know, I like the open

territory, I like the hunting, I like the fishing, I like the open

space, I do not appreciate the noise or I am concerned that this

could become much more active. They like it the way it is. Are

there constituents that you have like that and what is the tradeoff

that you see happening here?

Mr. HANDLEY. There are constituents who—and property owners

on the north and south side and friends of mine, who graze cattle,

do business with Avon Park, live in communities adjoining, under

the flight patterns, and mostly, in my opinion, the people who have

been here for a number of years appreciate the military and they

would like for the land use regulations to remain the same, they

would like to see continued public recreation, they would like to see

continued hunting, research and those things. And as I wrote in

my statement, the flight annoyance and noise associated with military training versus the assurance of a well-trained and competent

military, I think most of the constituents in this area will choose

a well-trained military to keep our great country free. You have,

in my opinion, a very loyal bunch of people around Avon Park and

in Highlands County.

Mr. SHAYS. So there is some pride that this facility exists here

and that they are contributing very clearly to our national defense?

Mr. HANDLEY. Yes, sir, that is my opinion.

Mr. SHAYS. One of the places we are going to later is to Vieques

and I have been there once. It is an extraordinarily important site

because it is the one area on the east coast where we can do land

assault, sea assault as well as air assault, and even from the sea,

the use of submarines. So it is an ideal site and it has been heartbreaking for me to have this become such a nationalistic issue on

the part of our friends in Puerto Rico, who do not realize what a

valued site this is and the pride they should feel that they are in

fact contributing to the national defense. All of our pilots who went

to Vietnam from the east coast trained at that facility. So I am

grateful to know that you have a sense that your constituents have

a sense of pride about this facility.

Mr. HANDLEY. Yes, sir. The only thing that some of the constituents have relayed to me is occasionally there will be some ordnance

that falls off one of these airplanes and maybe the Colonel can address that because he is more attuned to the type of ordnance that

50

these planes carry, but occasionally a piece of ordnance will fall off

on private property and most of the times, the ordnance that is currently used on the bombing range is not HE or high explosive.

If the proposed mission is for the use of high explosive ordnance,

then the constituency of Highlands County would probably have a

different opinion.

Mr. SHAYS. See, what happened in Vieques was you had a young

man who was killed. The implication was that he was in the village

9 miles away, that is the way the press reported it. He was actually on the observationsite and there were two planes and, as you

obviously, most people know, they cannot go after the target until

they have been cleared from the observationsite. But the two

planes cleared, which was a breaking of the policy, without the observation deck knowing. So they cleared the first plane and the second plane was targeted right on the observationsite, thinking he

was cleared.

But any one tragedy can change the dynamics of acceptance. So

a bomb landing on a farmer’s field or a rancher’s field, would not

be, with high explosives, too appreciated.

I am going to come back to you in 1 second. Let me just ask you

this question though. I have often wondered why you would even

need to have a high explosive. I mean, other than—it would seem

to me that as long as they know they have hit the mark, as long

as they are using a weapon that is totally balanced the way a real

weapon—a total high explosive weapon—is balanced with all the

dynamics, why would you need at times to practice with extraordinarily high explosives?

Lt. Col. THOMPSON. You can practice with inert weapons, concrete filled bombs that provide just about all of the training, but

it is like going out and hunting. Shooting a blank is not going to

get you anything.

Mr. SHAYS. But in other words, so you have some explosive to it,

but—I do understand that. But as long as you have a minimal

amount to show the explosion, to show that it happened——

Lt. Col. THOMPSON. There are some planning considerations that

go into planning actual employment of live weapons, especially as

you employ at lower altitudes that need to be practiced from time

to time.

Mr. SHAYS. Are you saying even just loading the plane——

Lt. Col. THOMPSON. Not only for the pilots but for the

weaponeers, the guys who actually physically buildup the bombs

and the fuses and then load them onto the aircraft. There is training that is involved there that they cannot receive as realistically

with inert ordnance.

Mr. SHAYS. Are you saying that even for a pilot to have an inert

ordnance, the feeling they have versus having a very high explosive

weapon on board is——

Lt. Col. THOMPSON. It is different. You know that you are not

going to hurt yourself past a certain altitude, you do not know that,

you know that you have to completely honor the explosive capability of that weapon and the potential for ricochets also when it explodes. And it brings a certain different sense when you are dropping high explosive weapons.

51

Right now in Air Combat Command, we only require our pilots

in single seat business anyway, that I am most familiar with, to

drop high explosive weapons once a year. And generally we train

with inert ordnance other than that.

Mr. SHAYS. So you are saying at least once a year, pilots need

to experience what it is like to use the actual weapon with the detonation capability that exists in the actual weapon.

Lt. Col. THOMPSON. Yes, sir, that would be my experience.

Mr. SHAYS. I hear you. Colonel Golden, anything to add to that?

Lt. Col. GOLDEN. Yes, sir. In fact, today, our Apache Battalion

out of Craig Field in Jacksonville will be down here today firing

high explosives with Hellfire missiles, which is anti-armory. And it

is—right now, this is the only place in the State of Florida that we

can do it.

Mr. SHAYS. I know how we could raise a lot of money. Just allow

the public to watch it. High liability, but it would be darned interesting.

Lt. Col. GOLDEN. But you just want to be as far away from it as

you can with binoculars.

Mr. SHAYS. I understand, I understand.

OK, thank you for your patience, Mr. Putnam, you have the floor.

Mr. PUTNAM. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Olsen, as we have conducted these hearings about ranges

and facilities all over the country, and really all over the world,

there are several issues that come up. When we are talking about

international facilities in Puerto Rico, Okinawa, some parts of

Japan, there is just a certain level of nationalism and anti-Americanism and other issues to deal with when we are on other people’s

soil. On American soil, you have issues of encroachment. Subdivisions who buildup over time, new people move in, do not appreciate

the noise, do not have the same sense of community pride. And environmental regulations. The Marines have a substantial swatch of

coastline on the Pacific coast of California at Camp Pendleton.

They have to adjust their amphibious training maneuvers around

the mating habits of a particular bird.

You have testified that we have 40,000 user days at this range

from sportsmen, world class Osceola turkey hunting, you manage

a $20 million timber inventory and you generate $800,000 a year

in revenue from the leasing and the timber and related multiple

use issues.

Is it your—do you believe that those in any way detract from the

primary mission of this facility of preparing soldiers and pilots for

their mission in combat?

Mr. OLSEN. Generally speaking, I do not think it detracts from

it much at all. I think we can accommodate all users out here and

we can have the recreation, we can have the camping, hunting,

fishing, timber operations and still have the military operations out

here. The military needs to be compatible. In some situations

where we do have some wetlands and they are extremely wet or

we do have certain endangered species that, you know, maybe we

do not need to train right here, but guess what, we can train over

here. There are enough acres out here to where I think we can be

compatible with all the different users out here, and sometimes

they need maybe to adjust themselves and not just say well, that

52

is the only place we can do it. Well, maybe there are some other

places out there which are also compatible that we can also accommodate all parties. I think in most situations it is. I would say with

my operation, I deal with forest management—— Mr. SHAYS. Could the gentleman yield for just 1 second?

Mr. OLSEN. Certainly.

Mr. SHAYS. I am unclear as to who your direct employer is. Is

it the Air Force or is it the—— Mr. OLSEN. I am the Air Force; yes, sir. I am a civilian employee

with the Air Force.

Mr. SHAYS. OK.

Mr. OLSEN. I am in charge of the forest management program

out here.

Mr. SHAYS. OK.

Mr. OLSEN. Part of the Environmental Flight.

My program, forest management, if not done properly, it can be

extremely disruptive. We are able to come out here and manage

timber resources, vital resources this country needs, and be compatible with the endangered species and the sensitive wetlands and

things like that we have out here. You know, every year we will

move out 800 trucks, anywhere between 70,000 to 80,000 pounds

of timber coming out. Plus we have large shears out there, skidders, and we are able to work with our botanist and the biologists

and accommodate them, to satisfy them that we are not so-called

stepping on their toes, on their little piece of the pie here that they

have.

Mr. PUTNAM. Of the 106,000 acres that comprise the range 56

percent have been designated exemplary environmental condition

by the Natural Areas Inventory?

Mr. OLSEN. That is correct.

Mr. PUTNAM. The Natural Areas Inventory, that is a State program run through the preservation program.

Mr. OLSEN. That is correct.

Mr. PUTNAM. That is not an arm of the Air Force, they have solid

environmental credentials in making these evaluations.

Mr. OLSEN. We have them come out here and inventory our property. Same thing with the wetlands too, we hired contractors to

come here and delineate all our wetlands on the property.

Mr. PUTNAM. So even the areas that are routinely shelled, have

Hellfire missiles shot at them, have inert bombs dropped on them,

they still remain an exemplary environmental—— Mr. OLSEN. Well some of the areas. Now maybe where they are

shooting the Hellfire missiles may not be, but a lot of the other

habitat——

Mr. PUTNAM. At least for a few weeks.

Mr. OLSEN. Some of our other habitats, we have grasshoppers,

sparrows on the ranges, we have red cockaded woodpeckers, things

like that, and they are able to exist in harmony with the ranges.

Of course you have got to look at the ranges, the actual impact

areas, what they actually drop on, is usually not that large. Most

of it is just all buffered area in many situations. They do not bomb

out here on 20,000 acres, they only use small little places where

they actually—and most of the bombs are inert anyhow, the only

ones are the Hellfires.

53

Mr. PUTNAM. Could you elaborate on the larger area when you

talk about the buffer zones, how many acres adjacent to the range

are in some kind of a conservation management program and who

manages those and how do they integrate with the flora and fauna

at the range?

Mr. OLSEN. You mean outside the Air Force property or—— Mr. PUTNAM. Yes, you have adjacent State forests and conservation areas. When you talk about the greater public lands area, how

much area are we talking about?

Mr. OLSEN. I could not give you an exact figure off the top of my

head. You know Avon Park Air Force Range is 106,000 acres, so

if you want to make comparisons to there, we are talking almost

double that, maybe another 106,000–100,000 acres outside.

Mr. PUTNAM. And those are all essentially State-owned property,

either through Water Management or—— Mr. OLSEN. Water Management Districts or something like that.

They have generally been purchased through Preservation 2000

funds, most of them.

Mr. PUTNAM. So the environmental footprint, the wildlife habitat

areas, the wildlife corridor, is vastly greater even than 106,000

acres.

Mr. OLSEN. That is correct. That is what made Avon Park so significant, is because we had such a unique environmental community here. The big thing, what they are looking to do now is they

want to expand, they want big large tracts of land. So purchasing

everything around Avon Park became critical.

Mr. PUTNAM. So would that be then a target for one of the State

land purchasing programs? Do they have their eye on 106,000 acre

contiguous parcel in the middle of a ridge, scrub habitat?

Mr. OLSEN. If the Air Force decided to get rid of it, there would

be people waiting in line. U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service would like

to have it maybe, the State of Florida.

Mr. PUTNAM. So there are those people out there then who would

like to see the training component removed and make it an environmental reserve.

Mr. OLSEN. I should not say that, I think a lot of them just happen to leave it the way it is and let the Air Force do the management on it. Most regulatory agencies are extremely happy with the

way we manage the property. If you read my report, we do not

have them looking over our shoulder and critiquing our every

movement. We hire a lot of outside contractors, local and U.S. Fish

& Wildlife Service, we use Archibald Biological Station, we use

these contractors to give us research data on these species we have

out there. So we work in a team effort with that.

Now we have unique situations, we may get some direct consultation with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. This happened recently, 6 or 8 months ago, we had extreme wildfire out there in

some red cockaded habitat and we had some of those people come

down and I got together with the biologist and their biologist and

we went out in the field and we looked at the impact this may have

about possibly salvaging some of the wood, what we could take out,

what we may want to plant back. So it is more of a cooperative effort. I have sort of heard from the agency that they would like

Avon Park to stay the way it is, let the Air Force take care of it

54

because you have the dollars to maintain it. You know, even if the

Fish & Wildlife Service did get ahold of this place, a lot of times

they just do not have the funds to manage it the way the Air Force

is doing it.

Mr. PUTNAM. Neither does the State.

Mr. Handley, you mentioned a couple of potential impacts of the

range, the noise factor and local economic development impact, jobs

and things of that nature. Does the fact that there is these large

buffer zones around the range mean that essentially for the long

term, for the foreseeable future, Highlands County’s noise issues

would be mitigated by having those buffer zones around the range?

Mr. HANDLEY. I would say generally speaking, yes. But from the

area south of us in Lorida, that is one of the low altitude—I believe

that is one of the low altitude corridors. I know there are not a lot

of people that live in Lorida, but you know, they are constituents.

Mr. PUTNAM. I see a few of them out there.

Mr. OLSEN. Yeah, there are a few of them out there. Commissioner Stokes, one of our county commissioners, is here with us

today and he might could address that issue more than I could.

And our neighbors to the north along Highway 60 and one of the

air corridors that go up over Lake Kissimmee is one of the low altitude corridors that approach the range.

That is about really all I have to say.

Mr. PUTNAM. Colonel Thompson, we hear a lot about these environmental concerns and the additional precautions and preparations that the base commanders have to take. You have an impressive stockpile of troop carriers out there for potential targets and

F–4 shells and Sikorski helicopters. You take—— Mr. SHAYS. That is very sensitive for me because we make Sikorski helicopters just outside my district and we just do not like to

ever see them shot at. [Laughter.]

Mr. PUTNAM. That is just one more they have to buy.

Mr. SHAYS. Good point. Actually, we like it, we like it.

Mr. PUTNAM. You have got to drain the fuel tanks, drain all the

hydraulic fluid, drain all the oil plans out of these large pieces of

equipment. How many manhours does it take to prepare a target

to meet your environmental regulations and do you believe that the

environmental restrictions placed on this mission are backed by

sound science and are in an equilibrium?

Lt. Col. THOMPSON. I think we proved that they are backed by

sound science. It has cost us a shift in the way we operate in the

last 15 years. We did not worry about hydraulic fluid leaking into

the ground and things of that nature 15, 20 years ago. In addition

to those things you have mentioned, we also have to remove the

batteries from those and dispose of them, which is not a cheap operation. I would guess, and this is a guess because I have not physically watched them do it, but I would venture to say we probably

spend close to 100 manhours per vehicle to prepare them to become

a target out there. It takes a team of people to do that and it will

take a couple of days to do it, so I could easily see 100 manhours

per vehicle—per target of that type, which is one of the reasons we

are shifting toward some of our more environmentally safe targets,

although we like the realism and will continue to use the excess

personnel carriers and other things that we can get our hands on.

55

Mr. PUTNAM. I know that members of the audience have heard

about $600 toilet seats and $40 wrenches and $4000 hammers and

things like that. Could you elaborate on ways that—we have heard

from Mr. Olsen how you use multiple use management to generate

the dollars to hire wildland fire fighters and biologists and things

of that nature. On the targeting side, could you elaborate on some

things that you all are doing to keep costs down, that are environmentally sound and are stretching out these ever-shrinking defense

dollars?

Lt. Col. THOMPSON. Well, obviously, first off, the targets that we

have out there now, we try to utilize them as long as they remain

viable targets and present a recognizable target in the area. And

then and only then do we pull them off the range and then have

to dispose of them as residue, which is another program in and of

itself.

But I have a supply person who works here in our organization,

who I feel went above and beyond the call of duty and she found

an avenue to allow us to obtain at no cost to the government some

excess decommissioned, if you will, sea/land containers. And we are

utilizing those now to build target arrays with. They were delivered

here free of cost to us, the only cost we have had is some small

painting costs to paint them to look proper and paint windows on

them and then we bought some premade roof trusses and threw

some 4 by 8 sheets of plywood on top of that to make roofs out of

them and we have been able to configure them in different shapes

to build an urban target array on one of our ranges. So for the cost

of about, so far, around $10,000 to $12,000, we have been able to

build a fairly nice target array and will continue to expand on that.

I am sure once somebody figures out we are utilizing them, then

we will not be able to get them as cheaply as we have so far, but

we have got just over 200 sitting out there now.

Mr. PUTNAM. You mentioned the urban warfare target array, as

we shift the focus of the entire military, not just this range, away

from the traditional sight bomber scenario and we get into more

complicated situations, urban warfare zones as we have seen in

central Europe, how has this range evolved and adjusted to meet

the changing needs of the training requirements for the personnel?

And could you elaborate some more on that urban center?

Lt. Col. THOMPSON. Certainly. If I can backtrack just a little bit.

One thing this range has always prided itself on, if a user, somebody who wants to utilize this range, will tell us the type target

arrays they would like, we will do everything we can to build that

particular array for them. I will give you a particular instance.

In the previous couple of years, Aviano has not been able to train

the fighter wing there, the 31st Wing at Aviano, S–16 wing. They

have not been able to train in Italy to the full extent they would

like. This year, we have not seen them, but the two previous years

to this year, we had a month long deployment of a squadron from

Aviano come over here. They told us the type target arrays they

would like to see, we built them for them before they ever arrived

and had them out there. And that greatly enhanced their capability

to drop precision-guided munitions like laser-guided bombs.

That is one of the reasons we are building the urban target

array. As we move into peacekeeping type operations and other

56

issues like we have seen in Bosnia, the targets are not like they

were in Desert Storm where you have got the republican guard entrenched out in the desert and bunkered up and where we could

go do our tank clinking. We are finding targets that are out sitting

beside government buildings in towns or beside houses and that

takes a particular type of training, because even though we are

dropping those bombs from 20,000 to 25,000 feet, you have got to

train properly to put that laser on the spot to enable the bomb to

hit it and there are issues involved there with lasing that you do

not want to mask the laser spot by having a building between you

and the target. So there are a lot of different things you need to

train to, to perfect that ability and be ready to do it when our national command authority calls on us to do that.

So we are trying to construct those type target arrays that will

enable us to better train in that regard.

Mr. PUTNAM. Mr. Liszt, Florida is growing rapidly, we have 600

to 700 new residents per day that come down here. We have tremendous challenges in our commercial airports, Tampa International Airport is in the process of greatly expanding their capacity, Orlando, Miami, Hardee County is in the process of trying to

lure a major commercial airport there.

As these growth patterns continue, the peninsula is only so big,

will we be able to continue through your real time airspace management strategy to maintain essentially a protected hole in the

sky as large as this range requires, 10, 15, 25 years down the road?

Mr. LISZT. Yes, I believe we will. And the way that will happen

is with the near real time and new automated equipment. Currently, we have in every one of our en route air traffic control centers a traffic management unit that knows where every airplane in

the sky is, time estimates and controls the flow of those through

the command center.

Florida, unlike most of the rest of the country, runs north-south.

So we in Florida are procedurally designed around the area we are

speaking of. Where there might be an impact is how high these

missions require, should they change. If they go up very high, then

we are going to affect the traffic that runs east-west across Florida.

So that would be the impact. There is enough space to get around

south, we are looking at a fourth runway at Orlando and new arrival fixes to the east coming out over the ocean. We are looking

at reduced vertical separation over the ocean, so I think we will see

more traffic over the ocean and the Gulf of Mexico in the future.

Mr. SHAYS. Let me just interrupt the gentleman just for a second, if he would yield. We have two individuals who would like to

address the committee. I would also say that whoever addresses

the committee, if they would like, could address question to the

panel. We will ask the panel to stay, if they would like that.

Right now, we have two, and we are happy to just have two. We

are not looking to encourage someone else, but anyone else who

would like to speak, there are these forms. The two we have right

now, the forms will be brought to you—Robert Babis has requested,

and Alec Fulford. If there is anyone else—Jason over there is passing out the forms and we will be using a live mic, so you will be

able to address the committee in a statement and address a question to the panel if you would like.

57

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. PUTNAM. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I appreciate that.

Colonel, do you see down the road the future of aviation tactics

and strategic weaponry—is there going to be a need to raise that

ceiling for ranges such as this? Is that the direction that the technology is moving, is that going to be an issue that we are going to

have a hearing in 12 or 15 years to address the fact that 31,000

feet is inadequate?

Lt. Col. THOMPSON. I think for the foreseeable future, the next

15 to 20 years, 31,000 will be adequate. We do not routinely use

31,000 day to day, but we do it when we have large exercises, when

we are bringing in large fighter packages, we need the airspace

then to coordinate all that.

Generally speaking, we employ our ordnance below 25,000, but

the potential to have that, we need to keep that and protect that,

but I do not see us expanding above that. What we currently have,

I think will be adequate.

Mr. PUTNAM. Is that fairly standard for ranges around the country?

Lt. Col. THOMPSON. No, it is not. In fact, 10 years ago, I do not

believe we had up to 31,000 on an as-needed basis. That has been

a development in that timeframe.

Mr. PUTNAM. So you have more space than average?

Lt. Col. THOMPSON. We do.

Mr. PUTNAM. More vertical airspace.

Lt. Col. THOMPSON. Correct.

Mr. PUTNAM. We are, again, in a better position than some other

ranges in terms of the encroachments.

Lt. Col. THOMPSON. Many ranges are capped at 18,000 foot and

below, some lower than that, but 23,000 is probably about the highest most of them go without other special use airspace above that.

Mr. PUTNAM. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SHAYS. I thank the gentleman. I just have a few other questions.

I would like to know, Colonel Thompson, what happens when

there is a misplaced bomb, either inert or not, that—what do you

do with it, do you track it down, do you—I mean——

Lt. Col. THOMPSON. We have got very set procedures on when we

can arm up our weapons system and generally speaking you have

to be over range property proper to arm up a system to allow a

bomb to come off the aircraft. Now occasionally we will have stray

electrons that run through airplanes because of a maintenance

malfunction that will allow a weapon to come off unintended, without anybody pushing the button or when you throw a switch that

it should not cause a bomb to come off. That is very rare, we have

not had a bomb come off outside this range in quite awhile and as

soon as we do that, the pilots advise us of that. It is back to a basic

integrity issue then. We expect them to notify us of that. Hopefully

it was seen to come off and we are able to pinpoint the location,

but generally speaking, the targets we have, we know the area

they will be flying over to employ that ordnance and we are able

to track that down. If it occurs off range, then we are going to send

a team out there first off to find that piece of ordnance, whether

it is live or inert, and then we are going to make sure that it has

58

not damaged any civilian property and we are going to cordon it

off and have our emergency ordnance disposal team come out and

make sure that the weapon is safe and then remove it.

Mr. SHAYS. The sea/land containers that you were able to purchase are basically containers that somehow have lost their integrity to be precisely measured and fitted in, so they are of no use

obviously to shipping companies. You have answered a question

that I have often wondered, why I see six stories worth of containers stacked in Newark, NJ. One of my staff suggested that since

we have such precise ability to hit the target, we could just leave

them right where they are and—[laughter]—but that not being

feasible—— Lt. Col. THOMPSON. I am sure there would be other issues there,

sir.

Mr. SHAYS. Yes. But it does make me wonder if we have a best

business practice policy that would make sure that your success in

your space with obtaining these is shared with not just the rest of

the Air Force, obviously Colonel Wheeless knows about what you

are doing, but I am just wondering if there are not other—the other

branches that do have sites, if they should not be made aware of

this. I am wondering if you have made an effort to share this with

other facilities.

Lt. Col. THOMPSON. We have made an effort in Air Combat Command to do that. We have not with our sister services and that is

certainly something that we need to pursue.

Mr. SHAYS. Yes. I love the competition truly among the branches,

so if you were to tell the Army about this, they would consider you

a traitor, you would just get hit again a second time.

Lt. Col. THOMPSON. Probably, sir.

Mr. SHAYS. OK, well, with the power vested in me, please feel

free to do it.

Lt. Col. THOMPSON. Yes, sir.

Mr. SHAYS. OK. I have no power to have you do that, but it is

a suggestion. [Laughter.]

Lt. Col. THOMPSON. I understand.

Mr. SHAYS. But one of the things that, for instance, this committee may do in our report is suggest that this practice be pursued

very quickly. One thing I know I want in the report fairly quickly

is I do not want our ranges being viewed as surplus property without a tremendous amount of long-term planning. Obviously some

smaller ranges may not have the capability to continue, but a jewel

like this facility, we do not want to start having—and it seems to

me that the success, Mr. Olsen, you are having working with your

Command to utilize the facility to also—you do not handle, or do

you, the whole issue of the campers. You are just totally with the

forest side, the hunters and so on.

Mr. OLSEN. Yes, that is correct. But I am familiar with the program.

Mr. SHAYS. But would that be handled out of your—directly out

of your office?

Lt. Col. THOMPSON. We have a separate group of people in the

organization that handle our camping and recreational hunting and

they do a very good job for us, but it is a separate section of the

Environmental Flight.

59

Mr. SHAYS. It just seems like it is a win-win. I mean as long as— I know the sense of when your constituents, Mr. Handley, will start

to complain is when if for some reason we saw, you know, do not

trespass signs going up and not being able to utilize it, then the

whole success of what you have been able to achieve will go down

the drain.

I do not really have other questions. Mr. Landress, I would—except for this—I am interested to know if the personnel that you

have, the inmates, and are you also involved with the younger inmates or that is a different area.

Mr. LANDRESS. That is a different area.

Mr. SHAYS. But I know that some of the public sometimes wonders why we should let people in corrections facilities produce a

product that competes with the private sector. But I just have a

hope and a prayer that people who are in prisons are made good

use of and develop skills and ultimately can leave those facilities

as a contributor to society, not a cost. I am just interested if you

have worked with this range to see if there are ways that your inmates can be utilized to provide a service.

Mr. LANDRESS. Well, we have inmate work squads who do contribute to natural resources, we recently built walkways and assisted in building bird houses that they use on the range.

Mr. SHAYS. OK.

Mr. LANDRESS. So our inmates do a lot of work. We do have our

own industry program there where we have a tire recapping plant

that sells mostly to the counties for school buses. We have a sanitary supply operation where we provide all cleaning supplies for

State government. This is a big pride operation here in Florida. So

we do utilize the inmates. Of course, many of them are trusty levels that do not permit us to let them outside.

Mr. SHAYS. I understand that.

Mr. LANDRESS. But we do have a work camp where we have 200

or 300 inmates who are at the level that we can permit to go into

the community to work on our Department of Transportation and

around the base here.

Mr. SHAYS. And when Mr. Putnam invites me down again to

have another hearing or to see something in his Congressional District and I come here and I drive on those roads, we are going to

know they are all taken care of and the obligations of the State

are——

Mr. LANDRESS. We will either have that road built or I will be

retired. [Laughter.]

Mr. SHAYS. Well, I hope you do not retire.

Mr. PUTNAM. We are going to do our part for the bridge.

Mr. SHAYS. Now is there any—I said I had one more question

and I really digressed slightly. I do have one last question that is

kind of broad, but would any of you like to address this question—

what do you see as the long term potential for Avon Park Range

as a training facility, a recreation facility or for other uses? Would

any of you like to—why do we not start with you, Colonel Thompson.

Lt. Col. THOMPSON. I would be happy to make a stab at that, sir.

I think long term we have the capacity here to handle more

training than we currently handle. We also have the ability to have

60

our recreation use continue in its present state and we have the

opportunity to bring our sister services in once we work with them

to make sure that we are not going to violate any current conditions we have in our environmental permits and modify those as

necessary if we need to. And then also reach the funding levels we

need to be able to handle the increased range usage. I think that

could potentially be a challenge there, but I believe there are avenues to address that.

Mr. SHAYS. Would anyone else like to respond?

Mr. OLSEN. Yes, I just want to add one thing. The recreational

program adds a great PR to this range, there is no doubt about it.

There is a lot of public that utilizes this place for all these different

opportunities and the Air Force has done an excellent job to try to

accommodate them and we just hope it can continue.

Mr. SHAYS. Any other comments?

[No response.]

Mr. SHAYS. OK, this is what we are going to do—I am going to

just—we have five people who have requested to address the committee. We have Robert Babis, we have Alec Fulford, we have Roy

Whitten, Edgar Stokes and the last name, Donelle Schwalm. Am

I saying your name correctly? Good, that is unusual. My staff has

a good laugh sometimes when I call our witnesses and our guests

to make comment.

What we will do then is recognize in the order that I called them,

Robert Babis, if you would raise your hand and we will make sure

you get that mic. Right over there. We are going to wait until you

get a mic. Do we have a mic. We have one mic, so Jason will—let

us just be sure that—is that mic not working? OK, the mic is not

working, it worked before. Let us not give up too quickly here.

VOICE. It needs a new battery.

Mr. SHAYS. Just wait 1 second. Do we have a second mic? Let

us just check to see if the other one works. Jason, is there another

mic?

The REPORTER. Just use the Colonel’s right there.

Mr. SHAYS. Yeah, we will, we will in a sec. Court reporters are

not allowed to overturn the chairman here yet. [Laughter.]

I will acquiesce soon, but—I get pushed around enough by my

leadership to give up control here. [Laughter.]

Adam understands that.

OK, that is what we will do. Let us just see how far we can pull

that one up. Thank you. Mr Babis, welcome.

Mr. BABIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Welcome to you. My name

is Robert Babis, I live in Tampa, FL. I am a commercial pilot and

a former military aviator as well. I do a lot of flying in the State

of Florida and the Avon Park Range, I have bombed on it and——

Mr. SHAYS. Hopefully that was when you were in the military.

[Laughter.]

Mr. BABIS. So I know the geography and I know the airspace. I

have a question I would like to address to the FAA.

In the Special Use Airspace Management System, is it implemented here now? And that is one of the questions. Has it been implemented for Avon Park.

61

Mr. SHAYS. Why do you not ask all your questions and then we

will—so that is one question. Do you understand the question, Mr.

Liszt?

Mr. LISZT. No, I do not understand what you mean by implemented.

Mr. BABIS. The Special Use Airspace Management System that

you mentioned in your remarks. Is it implemented here at Avon

Park?

Mr. SHAYS. OK, that is one question. Do you have another question?

Mr. BABIS. The other one was in designing the system for the

Special Use Airspace Management System, was there civilian input

as far—I know you had DOD input, but did you have civil input

from general aviation and commercial aviation? That was the other

question to the FAA.

Mr. SHAYS. OK, thank you.

Mr. LISZT. The answer to the first question is yes, Avon Park is

inputted into this Special Use Airspace, into SAMS. That is currently done on a scheduled basis when it becomes active and when

it closes down, and that information—— Mr. SHAYS. Make sure you keep talking to the mic.

Mr. LISZT [continuing]. Is populated directly to the control work

force.

As far as the second question, I cannot give you a yes or no. The

process would have been that civilian input would have been taken

into consideration.

Mr. SHAYS. Let me just say that as a general rule, there usually

are hearings and there should be. If there is not, it is something

that Mr. Putnam can followup on because there needs to be that

citizen input.

Mr. LISZT. That is the process.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you.

Our second question is Alec Fulford. You need to stand in front.

I am sorry that we are doing it this way.

Mr. FULFORD. It is about taller than I am.

I appreciate being able to ask this question. I lived here for 26

years on the bombing range, the family did, with cattle, and then

moved up to Highway 60 in 1988. And that low flight pattern is

right over the top of my TV antenna coming off that lake, Lake

Kissimmee. Since you have quit flying, we do not have that problem, but I do have the National Guard shooting the other way

shaking the windows.

The question I have really got to ask about is do you foresee the

State or the Air Force increasing their area such as on the River

Ranch property north of the bombing range as far as accessing or

purchasing?

Lt. Col. THOMPSON. Well, I do not see the Air Force buying any

more property.

Mr. SHAYS. Let me do this before you respond. Do you want to

make a comment as well and then we will have you sit down, but

I get nervous when you keep holding the mic because—— Mr. FULFORD. What did I do?

Mr. SHAYS. No, no, you are doing great, you are doing great. It

is just that I am going to make sure we do not have a continued

62

dialog. So I would like to request that you ask your question and

I also want to make sure that you address any point. Is there a

question here that you want us to be aware of before he answers?

Mr. FULFORD. My question is do they foresee expanding the area

north.

Mr. SHAYS. And what is your sense if they do that? Is that a good

thing or a bad thing or an in-between thing?

Mr. FULFORD. Well, it would put me out of business, yeah, from

that standpoint.

Mr. SHAYS. OK, fair enough. So we have a real need here to address that question. Thank you, sir.

Lt. Col. THOMPSON. In response to that, I do not see the Air

Force buying any additional property to the north. I know there is

an area that is depicted on the map behind you that the State of

Florida is considering buying as conservation land, to preclude any

encroachment on our range property. But I do not see the military

buying any more land.

Mr. SHAYS. Do you want to followup?

Mr. FULFORD. Do you foresee——

Mr. SHAYS. No, you need to use the mic.

Mr. FULFORD. Do you foresee the Air Force using that conservation land?

Lt. Col. THOMPSON. Well currently our military operating area,

not range airspace but military operating areas that we refer to as

MOAs, do expand north of the range, as we are currently set up.

It does not go down to the surface down there though.

Mr. SHAYS. So you want another question? I am happy to have

this dialog because it is educational for the committee.

Mr. FULFORD. Just a comment. Down to the surface could be 100

foot over my house.

Lt. Col. THOMPSON. Well, the range space we have up there right

now, sir, none of it goes below 500 feet and most of it is 1,500 foot

and above.

Mr. SHAYS. If you do not mind, I would love to understand something. As much as we have a buffer zone, the flight pattern to get

here requires them to fly low or are they actually on a target assignment? Are they actually practicing?

Lt. Col. THOMPSON. There are 14 military training routes that

terminate in Avon Park Range. They either come in from the north

or from the south portions of the range to terminate on the range

airspace itself. Some of those low level routes do run over property

up there. They have been established for a number of years, some

of them in excess of 20 years, they have been out there already.

Mr. SHAYS. So as much as we have a buffer zone, they still are—

before they even get to the buffer zone, are flying at a fairly low

altitude in some areas and the only reason that—and evidently it

is still fairly open spaced areas with selected ranches and homes.

Lt. Col. THOMPSON. That is correct. There—I am sorry—the

military——

Mr. SHAYS. But the danger would be, if this gentleman ended up

selling—not that—I am speaking with very little knowledge here,

but what has happened in other places, sells his land to a developer who starts to put up 100 homes and then we start hearing

63

from 100 people, not from 1 person. I mean there are some real

challenges that develop there.

Lt. Col. THOMPSON. Yes, sir.

Mr. SHAYS. And Florida has been known to put up 100 homes in

small areas. Did you have a——

Mr. PUTNAM. If the gentleman would yield. If you could quantify

how long that ingress and egress is, is it 30 miles, is it 50 miles

that they drop down to that 1,500 foot deck?

Lt. Col. THOMPSON. Some of the routes are more than 100 miles

long, but generally speaking, we are not going to linger over somebody’s house. They will be doing—in the case of an Air Force fighter, they might be somewhere between 500 and 1,500 foot above the

ground and they will be traveling about 480 knots, which is about

8 miles a minute. So they will be out of that airspace relatively

quickly.

Mr. SHAYS. Yes, but that is a low flight.

Lt. Col. THOMPSON. Yes, sir.

Mr. PUTNAM. Has there ever been a situation—are they traveling

at a speed where they could potentially create a sonic boom

over——

Lt. Col. THOMPSON. No, they do not, not on these military training routes. They are restricted to subsonic air speeds, they do not

come close to approaching——

Mr. SHAYS. But as this gentleman would point out, when you fly

500 to 1,000 feet, it hardly matters if it is a sonic boom or not. It

is an exciting moment in his life. [Laughter.]

Mr. PUTNAM. Mr. Fulford, are you sure some of that artillery

sound is not just those guys at River Ranch shooting those propane

tanks?

Mr. FULFORD. No, because it comes back over the house. [Laughter.]

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you for addressing the committee, that is very

helpful.

We now have Roy Whitten. You know, I really would like to ask

if any of the speakers are from Connecticut because I would give

them twice as much time. [Laughter.]

Mr. WHITTEN. Well, I did spend some time in Connecticut, so if

that will give me a little extra——

Mr. SHAYS. Any time means you were in prison.

Mr. WHITTEN. OK. Mr. Chairman, Congressman, my name is Roy

Whitten. I have been affiliated with the Air Force off and on, shall

we say, for the past 60 years. I was in that regular Army Air Corps

before World War II on the flight line, during World War II as a

sergeant on the flight line and during Korea as an information officer with a training base in Arizona. I ended up my career out of

the Reserve in the Secretary of the Air Force’s office in Washington.

I have lived here now for the past 20 years, in this area. I have

been affiliated with the Air Force Association, the Retired Officers’

Association and the Highlands County Veterans’ Council. And I

think I would speak for the large majority of all the members of

that group and all veterans in this county to say that training is

so important. Some very wise general perhaps or sergeant many

64

years ago said ‘‘The more you sweat in training, the less you bleed

in combat.’’ I think that everybody would agree.

On April 28, 1993, General Chuck Horner, who as you remember

was the air boss in Desert Storm, stood outside here near where

the flagpole is and in one of his remarks he made he said ‘‘The

training that the pilots received at Avon Park and other training

ranges saved many a life in Desert Storm, both in the air and on

the ground.’’ I think that is a good testimony for the value of this.

Now this community I think has supported the range and vice

versa. And I think we should take that and realize how much the

range has supported the community, financially and otherwise.

This occasion that General Horner was here was because we

were at that time downsizing the military down to, as the Colonel

said, to he and four other persons. At that time, we had 200 and

some odd people here. But all—and during that time, Steve, we did

have a military affairs committee with the Chamber of Commerce,

of which I served on during that time. So we had a good relationship and I think it would continue to be, whether it is run by civilian or whether it is run by military, because also as a former economic developer, I know the economic impact that a range like this

has upon the community, in more ways than one.

Thank you for having the opportunity to make this presentation.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you.

I would now—I am going to come back and ask a question of our

second speaker, if he would remain. But we will go to Edgar

Stokes.

Mr. STOKES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Putnam; Edgar

Stokes from the Highlands County Board of County Commissioners. Just a short statement and to recognize that we do have

an economic impact analysis of the Avon Park Air Force Range

from the Economic Development Commission in Highlands County.

Mr. SHAYS. We will make sure that is a part of the record, if it

is not already.

Mr. STOKES. You should have one. If you do not, we have some

more copies.

Mr. SHAYS. We will make it a part of the record. It is part of the

record? OK.

Mr. STOKES. We recognize the economic impact that it has on

this county, also the recreational impact that it has, and to recognize that you are looking at all avenues of impact to enhance the

use of this range.

Just a comment from Mr. Handley’s statement about the Lorida

area south of the bombing range. I know it is misleading when you

go through that town to realize you are in town, but we have got

blinker lights there now to bring that out. [Laughter.]

And also this study will show that 75 percent of the residents

that live in Highlands County live in the rural areas and there are

several developments out there, good size developments just south

of the range.

As it happens, at this time, we are looking at a noise ordinance

in Highlands County. The airboats some up quite a bit, but they

are nothing compared to one of those low flying jets. So if you

would consider that. Thank you.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you, sir.

65

Mr. PUTNAM. Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SHAYS. Yes.

Mr. PUTNAM. Commissioner Stokes, as you know, the range sits

in sort of a precarious way between Polk and Highlands County.

Do the two boards of county commissioners ever meet to coordinate

planning or strategy for the range or ways that they can work together for things like the bridge or repaving or putting a best foot

forward for a looming BRAC Commission or things like that? Do

you have pretty good communication with the Polk County Commissioners on these things?

Mr. STOKES. Yes, we communicate from time to time. Fact is I

think we just took over some maintenance on mowing on the roads,

some of the roads out there; so, yes, we do occasionally if something

comes up, we’re in correspondence with them.

Mr. PUTNAM. So you feel like there’s a pretty good working relationship down there?

Mr. STOKES. Oh, yes, sir.

Mr. PUTNAM. Thank you.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you very much, Commissioner. Our last

speaker is Donelle Schwalm.

Ms. SCHWALM. It is Donelle Schwalm, but I do not take offense,

nobody ever gets it right.

Mr. SHAYS. You cannot be too fussy with me, that is about as

good as you are going to get.

Ms. SCHWALM. That is all right, it is usually Danielle—I am over

it.

I am a contractor for Archibald Biological Station—— Mr. SHAYS. Speak more slowly.

Ms. SCHWALM. I am a contractor for Archibald Biological Station.

Mr. SHAYS. Yes.

Ms. SCHWALM. And I am in charge of gathering the biological

data associated with RCW, red cockaded woodpecker, here on the

range. I also help, to an extent with the Florida scrub jay work,

but not a lot, I am not very familiar with that.

Anyway, my question is at this point in time we have, through

working with the Air Force, we are able to get the bombing schedules, we are able to keep out of their way and still get the good

biological data that you need to make the decisions concerning endangered species.

Mr. SHAYS. Right.

Ms. SCHWALM. Now I’m getting the feeling that the activity has

a good potential to increase here and I am curious how that would

affect—this is probably a question for you, Commander—how that

would affect our ability to get the data that you need in order to

make informed decisions.

Mr. SHAYS. And before he answers the question, let me just ask

you a question. You work directly for whom?

Ms. SCHWALM. Archibald Biological Station, it is located in Lake

Placid.

Mr. SHAYS. OK, and that is funded by whom?

Ms. SCHWALM. I believe our research is funded through the Air

Force but I am employed through Archibald, a private contractor.

Mr. SHAYS. I have got you. And is the private contractor basically

hired by the Air Force?

66

Lt. Col. THOMPSON. Yes, sir.

Mr. SHAYS. One of the things that—just of the observations, one

of the cleanest sites in Puerto Rico right now, one of the nicest Reserve sites, is the—the island is divided into thirds. You have the

range on one end, you have the village 9 miles away and on the

other side you have where all the munitions are kept for the larger

base in Puerto Rico. And that is now being given to the Puerto

Rican Government for practically noting, $1.

One of the pluses that we find, we have some environmental concerns with the military in terms of what, you know, has happened

in terms of chemicals and so on, but how the military has managed

their ranges and so on, hiring you in that sense, to monitor it, has

been pretty exemplary. We have been pretty pleased in government

how that has happened. I just wanted to say that.

But I would love—you will get your question answered. You can

stay up here if you have a followup question.

Lt. Col. THOMPSON. Well currently, as you know, we have our

contractors go out to do their work very similar to how we do real

time range scheduling with Miami Center. And so we do not allow

the contractors out on the property when we have training going

on out there obviously, but even in the foreseeable future, if the

usage of the range were to increase significantly, it still will not

probably, except during exercises, encompass the whole range at

once. So I believe that your efforts would still be able to pretty

much proceed like they are. They may have to change hours a little

bit, but we should be able to still do what we are doing.

Mr. SHAYS. Donelle, when you go on the site, what hours usually

are you on the site?

Ms. SCHWALM. For me personally, studying red cockaded woodpeckers requires that I be out just before sunrise, so I am usually

there, during the breeding season at 5:30 a.m. Depending on how

intense the work is during the day, I may be there throughout the

day and again, I have to work around their bombing schedule, I do

not want to get my brain blown out and I do not want to shut down

the mission.

Mr. SHAYS. I fear the gators more than the bombs. I have got a

thing for gators here. [Laughter.]

Ms. SCHWALM. Oh, man, there are some big ones, go down on the

river. Personally, they are not an issue for me, I work in the flat

woods. But yeah, we spend a lot of time out in the field but it is

generally early in the morning and then again late at night.

Mr. SHAYS. And early in the morning and late at night is when

you observe, it is easiest to observe them?

Ms. SCHWALM. Exactly. For red cockaded woodpeckers, they have

a range forage of like 400 and some odd acres, so we want to catch

them at their trees early in the morning.

Mr. SHAYS. But if you miss a week or two, is that a problem?

Ms. SCHWALM. Yes. Depending on at what point in time you are

collecting your data. If you want to know what the breeding productivity of the group is, for the breeding season you need—for example, right now, we visit every cluster every 3 days, we monitor

their nesting attempts, how successful they are, fledge attempts,

and if you miss 2 weeks in there, you might miss nesting attempts.

Mr. SHAYS. During the breeding season.

67

Ms. SCHWALM. During the breeding season, which for Florida

scrub jays begins in mid to late February. For red cockaded woodpeckers, it begins in mid to late April and then it continues

through July.

Mr. SHAYS. Well, I can tell you one thing, that the Air Force has

to be sensitive to that, because they do not want a position where

they are ultimately having to shut down because they are not, so

you carry a bigger stick than you may realize and so use it judiciously.

Ms. SCHWALM. OK.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you very much.

I just would like to make sure I am clear, because we really did

not have a lot of testimony on this. Mr. Fulford, you basically were

raising an issue that I honestly would have left the hearing without realizing. I made an assumption that the buffer zone was so

large that aircraft would come in high, then dip down beforehand

and what I am hearing is that to even as large as this area is, they

are still having to come down pretty low. And so the question I am

really going to ask you. For one, I want to make sure that is right,

but the second question I want to ask is, is there value in the government buying development rights. In other words, Mr. Fulford,

without you coming up, I am assuming you have a ranch there?

Mr. FULFORD. No, sir, I live on 60, I lease property there.

Mr. SHAYS. Yeah, OK. And it is a fairly large space?

Mr. FULFORD. Yes, sir.

Mr. SHAYS. So what you obviously do not want, it would seem to

me, Colonel, is to have this suddenly become a developed area. Is

there ever thought to buying development rights to allow it to continue the way it continues, so no one is being economically disadvantaged, in fact they may be helped because they have some resources, but then in perpetuity, it maintains less dense space.

Lt. Col. THOMPSON. We have not done that in the Avon Park Air

Force Range area, sir, but I know it has been done in other locations. So that is certainly a viable tactic to keep us from having the

problem. Now as our training has evolved and our employment

techniques changed in the last 10 to 15 years, we have less emphasis on low level training now than we did previously, because the

threat has changed. A lot of the low level training was predicated

on fighting a European scenario of war where we were going to

have the weather as a factor. We do not—we still train to that, but

not to the level we have in previous years. Most of the precision

guided munitions are brought in at a higher altitude and so we do

not have nearly the low level flights that we have seen in the past.

So I think it is much less of a problem now and will continue to

be less of a problem than what it was 10 to 15 years ago.

Mr. SHAYS. But you would agree, would you not, if activity increased nine-fold——

Lt. Col. THOMPSON. There would be——

Mr. SHAYS [continuing]. That we would start to have people in

this room who would say, you know, we are being negatively impacted.

Lt. Col. THOMPSON. There would be some increase in that; yes,

sir. And we would do our best to accommodate them and try to

change flight paths to——

68

Mr. SHAYS. Vary it so you are not always coming over the same

area.

Lt. Col. THOMPSON. Yes, sir, exactly.

Mr. SHAYS. One of the challenges that we had in LaGuardia coming over our property is the FAA can be so precise now with their

locking into the line of the runway that the plane high up does not

vary but a few feet and we started having consistently residents

saying something terrible is happening, we are getting all these

new flights. And what it was was they were able to direct it so precisely and so we asked the FAA to periodically vary that path so

that, you know, more residents would feel it, but they wouldn’t feel

it enough to have it be the challenge it was for a few.

Mr. PUTNAM. If the gentleman would yield. The map, the State

has tremendous designs on this entire ridge area, as they call it.

The green area that moves south from the range to Lake Okeechobee is wholly owned now by the State, I think they have completed

their purchase of the entire area. The yellow area above there is

also managed by the State and the River Ranch area, for good or

for ill, is also slated to be part of a purchasing program by the

State. So I think that actually the Air Force benefits from the fact

that the State is doing their work for them, using State dollars, as

they continue to buy up these conservation easements and development rights in outright purchase.

Now wearing my non-Air Force Range hat, I do not know that

is necessarily a good thing, but it will ultimately benefit you, from

an encroachment standpoint.

Mr. SHAYS. We are going to close and then I will recognize my

colleague, but before closing, I want to thank Colonel Len

Wheeless. Colonel, it is nice to have you here, I enjoyed my conversations with you last night and I appreciate the work you do

throughout the country. We have Colonel Earle Thompson, who has

I think been appreciated by your commanding officers and I can

understand why, I appreciate what you have done as well.

We appreciate the use of this facility. We also thank the fine

staff at Avon Park for their skill and help and kindness in arranging these hearings—Kenneth Beers, Michael Goodson, Richard

Cutshell, Wayne Stewart and Anita Shock.

And I also want to thank our court reporter William Warren,

who almost wanted to take over control of this hearing—[laughter]—you need to put that in that hearing transcript, Mr. Warren.

[Laughter.]

And also a final special thanks to Jason Chung, the subcommittee clerk who artfully mastered the thousand details it took to put

this hearing on, and appreciate his very good work.

At this time, I would also thank you again, Mr. Putnam. I have

enjoyed being in your district and would say to those present, it is

fascinating to know a Member up in Washington and appreciate

the good work they do, it is particularly valuable to see the districts they represent and the people they interact with and it helps

you understand your colleague. We all are, in a sense, creatures of

the districts we represent. We grew up there in many cases, we are

shaped by the district and we tend to, as we should, reflect the interests of the district. That is what our founding fathers intended.

And I think I understand you a bit better by being in your district

69

and have always appreciated your work and am grateful that you

got me down here.

Mr. PUTNAM. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I want to thank you

for accepting my invitation and indulging in our request to hold a

subcommittee hearing in the district, particularly as we are beginning now our month long August recess in the Congress. I can

think of no other Member of Congress who has earned a month

long recess than you have, Mr. Chairman.

And I want to thank my district staff and my Washington staff,

who worked with the subcommittee and the local organizers and

the Range to put together an outstanding hearing.

And I want to thank the people who came out. We had a lot of

young people in the audience earlier. I think some of them are still

here and others have left, who I think benefit greatly from the opportunity to see Congress in action in their hometown and in their

community. It is important for Congress to get out of the beltway

from time to time, to hold these kind of hearings and to hear from

local officials and local stakeholders.

And I want to thank the veterans who are here. There is an

awful lot of members of the veterans service organizations who

have come out to participate in this hearing. And Colonel Thompson, I want to commend you. If you were not managing this range

well, it would be standing room only. And I think that the fact that

we have a few empty chairs is indicative of the relationship that

you have forged as a good neighbor to the community and to the

county and to the local governments.

And as we continue to work through these things, I look forward

to the continued participation from the airport authorities and the

local city councilmen and our environmental community and our

National Guard folks. It is an honor to be a part of this process

where we go around to different communities like Avon Park and

hold a U.S. congressional hearing to hear what people need and

what their concerns are and how we can move forward in the Congress to resolve some of those issues in the context of the national

interest. And so I thank everyone for coming out and participating

in this.

And Mr. Chairman, again, I cannot thank you enough for allowing the subcommittee to hold this hearing in my district.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you. You can adjourn the committee then.

Mr. PUTNAM. With that, the subcommittee stands adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 1:18 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

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