Local residents speak against expanding military training into Tate's Hell

Air Force officials heard a lot of opposition for their plans to expand military training into the Tate’s hell State forest when they held a public meeting on the issue in Apalachicola tonight.

About 60 people turned out to learn more about the Gulf regional Airspace Strategic Initiative or GRASI for short.

Nearly a dozen residents spoke out against the plan.

The initiative is still in the planning stage, but basically the air force would like to expand non-hazardous training to areas further away from Eglin Air Force base into parts of the Blackwater River State Forest and Tate’s hell.

The air force says that within the next few years the nearly half million acres it owns around Eglin won’t be large enough for all of their training needs.

Their needs include straight roads for landing aircraft, areas to use for drop zones and helicopter landing sites, and land to use for survival training.

They would also like to set up a number of threat emitters which are used to train aircraft crews.

Air Force officials said their plans would have minimal impact on the forest, though that claim was met with some skepticism.

A few people pointed out that there is an air force jet that has been buried in the marsh in the St. George Plantation since 2004 that proves that while the military may not intend to damage the forest, the reality is sometimes different.

The sentiment at Thursday’s meeting was that Tate’s hell is the wrong place for military use.

Residents raised concerns ranging from the impacts military aircraft would have on commercial air space to potential impacts on the Apalachicola Bay.

There were also concerns raised about impacts to hunting and tourism as well on public access to the property.

One residents pointed out that the forest was purchased with public money for public use and if the military needs more property it should buy its own.

At this point the Air Force is still measuring the potential environmental impacts of the GRASI initiative, and once that process is complete they will still have to get approval from the Division of Forestry.

They will also have to hold more public meetings once the Environmental Impact Statement is complete – the next local meeting will likely be in February.

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