By Zaz Hollander Anchorage Daily News (Published: August 5, 2001)
Kodiak -- U.S. military plans to launch test missiles for the nation's defense systems from Kodiak's rocket range have some locals up in arms.
President Bush announced in mid-July that he wants to base two test missile silos on Kodiak Island, reviving a local controversy that started in 1996 when a rocket launch complex went up near Fossil Beach, a popular hiking, fishing and whale-watching spot about 40 miles of bad road south of town.
At the time, protesters -- including one wearing a Miss Piggy costume -- held a barbecue to slam "Space Pork Kodiak."
Now some people worry that Bush wants to permanently house armed missiles on Kodiak Island and beef up military operations at what was supposed to be a strictly commercial rocket range with concrete launch pads for rent.
Military officials say that's not the case and that the silos will launch test missiles loaded only with solid fuel. They're holding a town hall meeting later this month to set the record straight.
"We want to try to correct some inaccurate information," said U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Rick Lehner, spokesman for the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization in Washington, D.C. "There's a perception we plan to deploy (armed) missiles, nuclear warheads, take over the island.
"We just wanted to look at the possibility of using Kodiak and maybe launch one, two, three (test) missiles a year."
The new launch plans have detractors, but they also have many supporters on the island, site of the largest U.S. Coast Guard base in the world. Phone lines hummed with heated calls from both sides on a call-in show on local radio station KMXT on Friday morning.
Some Kodiak residents say the controversy is a lot of noise over nothing. The test launches would be "a minor thing," Tom Sweeney, a retired insurance agent, said in an interview later in the day. "I'm all for it. Since Kodiak was settled, it's the military that's done the settling."
Critics don't have all the facts, said Ed Allen, technical director of the Kodiak Launch Complex. "In my opinion, the reason there's a controversy is when people talk silos, they think about wars," Allen said. "What we do here is testing."
Here's the government's proposal:
Once or twice a year, a test missile would shoot from a buried steel and concrete silo on Kodiak Island, aimed at an incoming missile that is supposed to act like it came from North Korea or other potential enemies. Really, it will come from Vandenburg Air Force Base in California or a site in the Pacific. If the mission succeeds, the missiles would meet over open water about 3,000 miles southwest of Kodiak.
In the mid-1990s, the $40 million rocket range was sold as a rarity: a moneymaking government operation that essentially would rent out launch pads to fire polar satellites into space. Then satellites evolved into military launches. So far, the facility isn't showing a profit, the state's coordinator for national missile defense has said. Several launches are schedule in the coming year, including the Athena launch at the end of this month, sending four satellites up.
Opponents seize on the facility's trouble making good on its promise."A silo is a good metaphor because they're like drains," said Mike Sirofchuck, a spokesman for the ad-hoc Kodiak Rocket Launch Information Group, formed in 1995. "There's that giant sucking sound. [of government money disappearing]"
Under Bush's new proposal, defense missiles would be tested at Kodiak but actually located at Fort Greely, when and if the system is ever deployed. Testing isn't possible at Fort Greely because falling debris from booster rockets could injure people. The proposal still needs to gain approval from Congress and go through a public review process.
Critics of the Bush plan say they oppose the proposed silos for the same reasons they didn't want the Kodiak Launch Complex built five years ago. They fear lost access at the Narrow Cape, since the range is on the only public land in the area, Sirofchuck said.
Environmental damage from silo construction and missile launches is another factor, he said, and the fact that the Kodiak announcement came as a surprise makes critics wonder what else the government isn't telling them.
Even Allen, the director of the launch complex, said he's heard little from headquarters in D.C. "There's been very little communication," he said.
U.S. Air Force officials acknowledge that the silo announcement in mid-July happened too fast to give people in Kodiak a heads-up. The president's military budget was on a fast track to Congress, they say. They hope the town hall meeting, scheduled for 6 p.m. Aug. 20 at the Gerald C. Wilson Auditorium, will clear things up.
Some Kodiak residents, however, say they'll always be skeptical.
Jack Bennett was teaching a high school current events class when news broke about "that rocket thing" in the mid-1990s. Bennett thought at the time that "this is a military process just being eased in the back door," he said last week.
Reporter Zaz Hollander can be reached at zhollander@adn.com or 907 257-4591.
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