DENVER—Ranchers are waiting to hear what the Army will do next after a federal judge rejected its plans to increase operations at a training site in southeastern Colorado.
U.S. District Judge Richard Matsch ruled Tuesday that the Army’s environmental review didn’t adequately assess the effects of possibly increasing training to 365 days a year at the Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site. He said the Army only vaguely described how the land would be used, and the decision to increase training was arbitrary because it relied on a flawed environmental review.
The Army uses the 238,000-acre site about four months a year, and has proposed expanding it by 100,000 acres to accommodate an increase in soldiers at Fort Carson. Matsch’s ruling dealt only with the Army’s plan to increase training on the existing site, including adding a live hand-grenade range, constructing a medical clinic and other support buildings, and upgrading roads.
Andrew Ames, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Justice, which represented the Army in the case, said Matsch’s opinion is being reviewed and no decision has been made about what to do next.
Fort Carson referred questions to a spokesman at Army headquarters, who said he couldn’t immediately comment on the decision.
The ranchers who sued over the environmental study also oppose plans to expand Pinon Canyon. They say the expansion is unnecessary and would take agricultural land out of production, hurting the area’s economy and way of life.
In the ruling, Matsch noted that when the Army created the site in the 1980s, an environmental review recognized that land in the semiarid climate can accommodate perpetual use for maneuver training. He also said it seemed like it was impossible for the Army to increase training without expanding Pinon Canyon.
However, the ranchers’ attorney, Steve Harris, said he believed the Army inflated its need for year-round training to back the case for expansion.
Harris believes Matsch’s decision means the Army must halt its plans to increase training and to start construction at Pinon Canyon. But he said he plans to confirm that with the Army’s lawyers.
Harris said he hopes the Army will give up on the expansion, given the recession and setbacks in the Colorado Legislature and in Congress.
“This is a project that, for a variety of reasons, has been shown not to be in the best interest of the American people,” he said.
