Concerned citizens, local businesses and advocate organizations are calling for officials to hit the brakes on a plan to turn a Tucson air force base into the third special operations hub of its kind in the country. It’s part of a broader effort to expand use of civilian airspace in southern Arizona and New Mexico.
Tradesperson and community member Melinda Matson Spina was among those who spoke at a public forum on the issue last month.
Especially following the rise of artificial intelligence, she expressed concerns about the Air Force using decades-old sources to gauge the expected environmental impact.
“The public needs immediate clarification on both of these proposals,” Matson Spina said. “Will military aircraft train with AI-enabled surveillance and targeting technology in these civilian areas?”
Laiken Jordahl with the Center for Biological Diversity also spoke, saying he’d helped draft hundreds of comments on this most recent environmental assessment.
“They completely brush off the risk of catastrophic forest fires in the EIS,” Jordahl said. “There have been massive fires in Arizona caused by Air Force flares that fail to detonate in the air, but detonate when they hit the ground.”
Jordahl cited severe injury and accidents caused by unexploded Air Force flares to people directly, and the possible cause of the 2021 Telegraph Fire.
The proposal would lower flight ceilings by thousands of feet, and reduce the required height to drop ordinance such as training missiles and flares.
“We have to do our best to remind the Air Force and remind politicians that the borderlands are not a sacrifice zone,” Jordahl said. “Our Indigenous nations here are not throwaway communities. We deserve peace, we deserve quiet.”
Roughly 30% of the proposed areas for expansion are over tribal lands.
