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Community Meeting on Proposed Military Bombing Range on Padre Island National Seashore No to Vieques! No to Vieques in Texas! When: Thursday, July 5 6:30 PM to 8:30 PM Where: Austin History Center (801 Guadalupe) What: Community Meeting, Panel Presentation Why: To Learn About and Build Opposition to a Military Bombing Range on the South Texas Coast Who: Meeting Hosted by Lone Star Sierra Club (477-1729) Invited panelists include: *Fred Richardson--Explantion of Proposal to Move the Vieques Bombing Range to Texas Lourdes Perez--What's Happening in Vieques *Alan Pogue--Effects of Depleted Uranium Weapons in Iraq Karen Chapman--Environmental Impacts to Padre Island and Laguna Madre Estuary *Rahul Mahajan--US Militarism Representative from Southwest Public Workers Union, San Antonio--Impacts of Toxic Plume under Neighborhoods Near Kelly Air Force Base *=confirmed ********************************************************* The threat is very serious. Corpus Christi and Kingsville chamber of commerce boosters, US Rep. Solomon Ortiz from Corpus, and apparently Karl Rove (Bush's Chief of Staff) are all pushing for opening a military bombing range approximately 5 times the size of the island of Vieques in South Texas. Groups across Texas are mobilizing to present swift and massive opposition to the insane plan to turn the Padre Island National Seashore and the Laguna Madre estuary into a warfare training center and bombing range. At least 5,000 people are expected to road-trip to the beach August 17-19 for a mass demonstration and eco-tour. Please attend this community meeting to hear the latest developments, learn about the local, national, and international ramifications of opening a large-scale military training ground in Texas, and strategize on putting together an Austin contingent to a beach protest at the proposed site in August. Below is an excerpt from the June 27 New York Times article on the proposed Texas bombing range explaining the proposal: "After the Bush administration announced last week that it would bow to protests and stop military bombing exercises on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques in 2003, officials here unveiled a proposal to move the maneuvers to a nearby area that would become an "expeditionary warfare training center."

The plan, which is backed by many of the region's business and political leaders, would create a training ground for bombing, ship-to-shore shelling and amphibious troop landings on 222,000 acres of privately owned ranchland just south of here in Kenedy County. It would attract jobs and other military missions to the area's three naval sites and insulate them from future cutbacks or base closings, said Dick Messbarger, director of the Kingsville Economic Development Council. Assaults by marines and armored vehicles along the 20 miles of coast would require amphibious crafts to plow over the barrier beaches of Padre Island National Seashore and then cut across the Intracoastal Canal and the ecologically sensitive Laguna Madre, an estuarial breeding ground of sea grasses. Those maneuvers could also require three 1.24- mile-wide corridors across Padre Island, home to the endangered Kemp's turtle. The amphibious craft could also stir up sediment in the tidal flats, destroy sensitive sea grasses and form "dead zones" in which no sea life could exist, Mr. McMullen said. "In the event of a short-falling shell, the chemicals in explosives could be extremely destructive to marine life in the Laguna Madre," he said. "And that's before we get into things like accidental spillages of fuel or chemicals." ***************************************************** Below is an exerpt from a June 28 Scripps Howard News Service story explaining that we aren't even supposed to know about the plan to bomb Texas: "Rep. Solomon Ortiz, D-Corpus Christi, expressed dismay that word had prematurely leaked out that a 20-mile stretch of coastal Kenedy County was under consideration as a possible alternative to the Vieques facility, where Navy and Marine Corps warplanes, ships and ground troops rehearse for combat. At the testy House Armed Services Committee hearing, Ortiz said that when word surfaced in the media June 21 about the White House's plan for Vieques and interest in the Kingsville-area tract, it interrupted a behind-the-scenes local effort to build backing for the plan before airing it publicly. "What we wanted to do was to have appropriate time to build that consensus, and this is something that the local officials have asked me," Ortiz told Navy Secretary Gordon England, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Vern Clark and deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz. "And everything was going fine until this story leaked out." For more information contact Erin Rogers or Fred Richardson at 477-1729