A group of ranchers, environmentalists and rural landowners hope to legally shoot down the Air Force's low-level training flights, arguing that the Air Force must complete an overall environmental study of the program before they're allowed to fly. The coalition, led by the Rural Alliance for Military Accountability and the Center for Biological Diversity, filed suit in federal court in Washington, D.C., Thursday. The lawsuit seeks to stop low-level flights until an overall study has been prepared. To ranchers, the low-level flights are jarring interruptions that have caused horses to buck and throw riders, cattle to stampede, and pregnant cows to abort.
Environmentalists find the flights similarly distressing.
They say such flights can disturb the migratory patterns of birds and undo the serenity of national wildlife preserves underneath the flights. And they startle species trying to forage for food, they say. The Air Force now prepares legally required environmental studies on a piecemeal basis. Buster Welch, a Rotan rancher who has opposed an Air Force proposal to bring low-level flights to West Texas, said he supports the suit. I'm not anti-Air Force.