Air Force considers land exchange

Susan Greene
Review-Journal

Top Air Force officials have pledged to consider relinquishing military areas in Nevada in response to a controversial land acquisition sought near the Groom Lake air base.

In January, Air Force Secretary Sheila Widnall met with Sen. Richard Bryan, D-Nev., about the service's plans to withdraw 4,000 acres as a buffer zone near its Area 51 testing facility in Lincoln County.

Environmentalists and military watchdogs have opposed that withdrawal - as well as unrelated plans for the Air Force to take over 107,000 acres of the Desert National Wildlife Refuge within the Nellis Air Force Range - without the military relinquishing other lands in exchange.

About his meeting with Widnall, Bryan said he "had the Air Force's assurance that they'll identify some acreage so there won't be a net increase in withdrawals in Nevada.

A spokewoman for Widnall said the Air Force has no intention of releasing equal acreage as a condition for its pending withdrawal near Groom Lake, a base the Pentagon does not acknowledge exists.

"It's not a land swap, 4,000 acres for 4,000 acres," said Widnall's spokeswoman, Maj. Mary Feltault. "What she agreed on was to possibly identify lands in Nevada that we no longer need. That's it." Neither Air Force nor Interior Department officials have pinpointed where mitigating land might be, if in Nevada at all.

While environmentalists are following the outcome of the landswap pledge, they will focus on whether the Air Force will exchange land for the estimated 107,000 acres in the Desert National Wildlife Refuge it plans to take over from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service later this year.

Reserved in 1936 for the protection of bighorn sheep, the land has been used since 1940 as targets for Air Force bombing practice. Fish and Wildlife officials have deemed that use incompatible with the goals of a refuge and are working to hand over the land to Air Force.

In exchange for the "jurisdiction reversal," Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Interior Department officials are seeking a land swap of at least 107,000 acres. but while Reid has insisted that ht exchanged land must be in Nevada, Interior officals have said they be willing to accept compensation outside of the state.

"We're interested in being compensated for the loss, preferably nearby, but we would be willing to work mitigation elsewhere as well," said Rob Shallenberger, chief of Fish and Wildlife's refuge division.

The Air Force has not yet committed to giving up land in exchange for its acquired jurisdiction of the 107,000 acres.

"As far as we're concerned, it's not a land acquisition because the Air Force has always beend the primary use," Feltault said. "Because of that, there's nothing on the drawing board in terms of mitigation."