The route, VR-l257, is a
four-mile wide corridor through the heart of the park. It overruns at least
nine campgrounds and numerous trails and vistas. Park visitors and others complained this past summer to military officials and to several congressmen from southern California, including Anthony Bellenson, Henry Waxman, and Robert Lagomarsino. Subsequent investigations produced written confirmation of what these visitors believed about the extensive noise pollution at Joshua Tree. The situation, simply put, has gotten out of control. Flights using VR-1257 come over 200 miles from Naval Air Station (NAS) Lemoore near Fresno. Most of these are from the U.S. Navy Pacific Fleet's Light Attack Wing, but other military jets use the route as well. NAS Lemoore Commander SR. Briggs and Edwards Air Force Base Commander Major General John P. Schoeppner both wrote lengthy justifications of their training activities here. Neither offered recommendations to change or delete any training routes, in spite of their obvious detriment to the park system. "(T)here are no civilian or military aircraft restrictions for low-level flight over national parks, monuments, forests, or wilderness areas with the exception of selected portions of Grand Canyon National Park," Gen. Schoeppner wrote. FAA noise standards and regulations apply only to civilian, and not military, aircraft, and, as Gen. Schoeppner noted, review of new low-level Military Training Routes "is limited to safety and technical aspects, not to environmental considerations." What does the Department of the Interior have to say about challenging the military's airspace takeover within its national park system? No one there appears to be taking a leadership role at the present tissue. However, a two-year research study is underway at several Park Service units, according to Stanley T. Albright, Regional Director of the National Park Service's Western Region. "Upon completion of this study." Albright said, "we will have evidence necessary to support the case for moving these routes from over NPS areas or at least raising their altitude." Additionally, he hopes the "the FAA will enact regulations requiring a minimum ceiling above legislative wilderness areas as well as other units of the National Park Service." The missing element at the present time seems to be that of bold leadership and vision. The FAA's attitudes, after all, were recently tested and found wanting with respect to control over civilian - i.e., tour-aircraft during the recent Grand Canyon rule-making controversy. The Department of the Interior may eventually act, but it will take years at least. The simplest thing now would perhaps be to get the military-or its Commander-in-Chief-to rescind military training routes over Joshua Tree, if not over all national parks. Strategically focused, persuasive action has produced "miracles" before. Maybe it can work again. Failing that, raising people's awareness at the grassroots and lobbying Congress will have to bring the ultimate legislative solutions we need. Clearly, the present situations is not acceptable, if we value our parks as places for citizens to find peace and quiet, and for wildlife to be protected from human activities. The parks were not set aside for war practice. Members of Congress like Bruce Vento, Anthony Bellenson, and many others should hear our anger and our demands that these places be restored to their original purposes, including the enjoyment of natural peace and quiet by the increasing numbers who seek it. If that requires systematic documentation of violators, let it be provided. If that requires re-routing of training lights and better radar monitoring of deviant aircraft, let it be done. Now. We are on the verge of losing southern California's most accessible desert park. If jangled-nerve city dwellers can't go to the desert to experience primeval silence, to depend for awhile on that healing silence, then in fact a "Noise Curtain" has truly descended across all America. If that is the end result of the "freedom" that we are paying so dearly for, then it should be rejected, for it is a false freedom. |
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