[CPEO-MEF] ENCROACHMENT: Counterpunch explores DoD's Readiness and Environmental Protection Integration (REPI) Program.

[Lenny Siegel]

“Get Your Endangered Species Off My Bombing Range!”

by JOAN ROELOFS
Counterpunch
MAY 17, 2019

“The Department of Defense’s ability to conduct realistic live-fire training, weapons system testing, and essential operations is vital to preparing a more lethal and resilient force for combat. . . . Starting in the late 1990s, the Department became increasingly concerned about “encroachment” pressures adversely affecting the military’s use of training and testing lands. Specifically, military installations saw two main threats to their ability to test, train, and operate: nearby incompatible land uses and environmental restrictions to protect imperiled species and their habitats.”

Such problems are to be resolved by the DoD Readiness and Environmental Protection Integration (REPI) Program. Among the threatening encroachments are lights from residential and commercial development that reduce the effectiveness of night-vision training; restrictions imposed because of noise, dust and smoke of military activities; civilian use of the frequency spectrum; communication towers, wind turbines, highways, and energy transmission lines; construction or drones that enable observation into sensitive mission areas; foreign ownership of adjacent properties; acoustic monitoring in sensitive Navy areas; development in an explosive stand-off buffering area or accident potential zones; and land development that pushes endangered species onto military lands.

The program employs “buffer partnerships” that include the DoD, private conservation groups, universities, and state and local governments.

…

For the entire article, see
https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/05/17/get-your-endangered-species-off-my-bombing-range/

--

Lenny Siegel
Executive Director
Center for Public Environmental Oversight
a project of the Pacific Studies Center
P.O. Box 998, Mountain View, CA 94042
Voice/Fax: 650/961-8918 
<lsiegel at cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org