Army tests in Utah's western desert are surprise to ranchers

Ranchers in Utah's western desert are worried about danger that may be posed by drone aircraft the Army intends to fly in the region starting in 2010.

And they're upset that until recently, military officers made no attempt to contact them directly concerning the project, said Cecil Garland, a resident of Callao, Juab County.

Citing his experience in Word War II, he said anything guided by electronics "can fall anywhere." Snake Valley was chosen for flights because it's sparsely populated, he believes. The tests would not happen in a more densely peopled place, according to him.

The Joint Land Attack Cruise Missile Defense Elevated Netted Sensor System, nicknamed JLENS, is an Army project that would use the Utah Test and Training Center, an Air Force facility within Dugway Proving Ground. Drone aircraft would be launched from Utah state school land east of Baker, Nev., said Steve Erickson, an activist with Citizens Education Project, Salt Lake City.

A detection system using tethered blimps would try to pinpoint the drones, which are stand-ins for cruise missiles. If cruise missiles really were launched against a target, the system is designed to provide targeting information to knock them out.

Erickson said tests would be carried out about once a month for a year-and-a-half or two years.

Garland, a rancher, said he and his neighbors only recently learned of JLENS.

Paula Nicholson, spokeswoman for Dugway Proving Ground, said officials told the Juab County Commission about the project in a phone call and asked if they wanted a briefing or public meetings. "We have given briefings in Salt Lake, Tooele and Millard counties and talked with Native American tribes," she said.

She sent five copies of the project's environmental assessment to Baker, Nev., Nicholson said. Some of the counties suggested that briefings be held "closer to the start date of the testing," she said.

Dugway will continue to inform the public about the project until it begins, and the Deseret Morning News carried an article about the program in June, Nicholson said.

But that information apparently did not reach remote Callao.

"We believe that they deliberately tried to keep this under the radar so that we wouldn't know about it," Garland said in a telephone interview. "It seems also that they didn't meet the letter of the law, in not coming to the communities who are actually their neighbors and telling us what they intend to do."