The New Hampshire National Guard is looking for a training facility in the state where it can conduct weapon training and possibly fire rockets.
It has its eye on a 15,000-acre site in Success Township near Berlin.
But it faces a major hurdle – the Conservation Fund also wants to buy the property.
NHPR correspondent Chris Jensen has the story.
Members of New Hampshire’s National Guard need a new place to train soldiers – particularly with ongoing deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan.
Now the state has lacked a place where they could fire weapons and conduct maneuvers .
So they have traveled as far as Pennsylvania and New York.
But New Hampshire National Guard Brigadier General Stephen Burritt says that needs to change.
“The Army, in an effort to reduce the amount of time that our soldiers are away from home, has limited us to saying a 12-month deployment. From the time you leave until the time you get back can’t be any more than 12 months. To accomplish that we have been tasked now to do more of the training here at home station before the deployment.”
As General Burritt sees it the time and money spent driving to other states would be far better used for training.
He says the Guard is still studying what kind of training would be appropriate -- but it would likely include small arms training and a shoot house where soldiers practice clearing a room with live ammunition.
They could also use a place to train mechanics and to teach drivers to use night-vision goggles.
“Driving with night-vision goggles is something we need exclusive use of the road. It not something we are going to practice on I-93. Not a good thing.”
Oh. There is one more possibility.
SOUND OF ROCKETS BEING LAUNCHED.
That is the sound made when rockets from the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System are fired.
General Burritt says the New Hampshire Guard will soon be getting this system, also known by the acronym HIMARS.
It is a truck-mounted system that can fire six, computer-guided rockets.
General Burritt:
“It is very maneuverable. It will do 65 mph on the highway but it will also fit in a C-130 and can be brought into a remote airstrip, driven out of the back of the C-130, fire and then actually drive right back in and take off and go to its next mission. It is a very maneuverable, high-speed, very lethal weapon system we are now going to get in New Hampshire. That is one of the things we are looking at. Where can we fire this and when do we need to fire it.”
HIMARS is built by Lockheed-Martin.
Lockheed-Martin spokesman Craig Vanbebber says the system can be tested with a non-explosive head but it takes some room.
“The minimum distance on the reduced range practice rocket, which is a round that is fired from HIMARS, is five miles.”
Crews can also practice using the system without firing rockets, but
Venbebber says it’s not the same.
“What they don’t get by going through the simulator is the actual feel of being in a launcher as the rocket launches out of the rocket. The sounds, the rocking of the launcher, the blast, they don’t get that same feel.”
So the guard is looking at a 15,000 acre tract in the small unincorporated township of Success New Hampshire.
The parcel has many merits for the Guard, it’s more than five miles long -- enough room to fire the HIMARS.
And the 2000 Census showed only two full-time residents,
But there is one major problem.
The T.R. Dillon logging company, which owns the site, already has a deal with the Conservation Fund.
The environmental non-profit organization hopes to obtain federal funds for a conservation easement to protect the land and make it available for recreational use.
The Conservation Fund has until March 2011 to come up with the money.
The Fund’s Vermont Director Nancy Bell says they also have another deal with the logging company for about 4,700 acres of adjacent but higher land.
“We have an agreement with Dillon corporation to purchase that 4,700 acres. That property is high elevation, six miles along the Appalachian Trail, some significant wildlife habitat as identified by the state of New Hampshire and important high elevation land. So, that would become publicly owned land by the National Park Service and managed by the White Mountain National Forest.”
If the Conservation Fund deal for the 15,000 acres falls through the National Guard would probably be thrilled.
General Burritt says the Guard has looked at several other sites but they are smaller.
Success is clearly the favorite.
General Burritt says a training ground in Success would attract guard units from other states and would provide an economic boost to nearby Berlin.
He says some of the land might also be kept open for recreational use.
“The objective here is not to put a fence around the entire piece of property and a “keep out” sign but to work with the community and work with the folks in the area to continue some of the recreation that goes on there as long as it does not interfere with training.”
But officials from neighboring Berlin seem protective of Success.
Norman Charest, Berlin’s economic developer director, says there are plenty of reasons why Berlin should try and obtain that land for itself.
They range from recreational-tourism to having fiber for biomass plants.
“A National Guard training facility does not belong in the Mahoosics. It does not belong in a place like Success. It closes the door to a way of life for the residents here. It closes the door to its potential in areas of recreation. It is just a square peg in a round hole.”
Berlin mayor David Bertrand says what happens to Success is important to his city.
“Well, due to its close proximity to the city we are going to take a vested interest in what goes on there. The city of Berlin has at least half of its land area taken by the White Mountain National Forest. So, the other half of the city is relatively developed at this point in time. We don’t have a whole lot of land available to us for development. So we are taking an active interest in what happens to our neighboring community, which is the Township of Success.”
But General Burritt says the Guard needs a good training facility.
“We feel it is very important and that is why we are pursuing this. It is important because it is incumbent upon us to make sure our soldiers are ready and fully trained to go off to war so that we will have the greatest chance of succeeding on the battlefield.”
For NHPR news this is Chris Jensen.
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