RANGELEY – Four meetings have been scheduled in Franklin County, two in Rangeley and two in Farmington, in order to discuss a proposal to site a missile defense system in Redington Township. Federally-owned and the current home for the Navy’s Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape training facility, the site is one of four under consideration.
The Department of Defense’s Missile Defense Agency will host the meetings in cooperation with U.S. Navy personnel. The meetings are designed to allow members of the public speak with MDA and Navy personnel about the proposal, and for those officials to collect public comment.
Meetings have been scheduled Aug. 12 and Aug. 13 at the Rangeley Lakes Regional School, with the Aug. 12 meeting running from 6 p.m. until 9 p.m. and the Aug. 13 meeting running from 9 a.m. until noon. Additional meeting has been scheduled for Aug. 14 at the University of Maine at Farmington’s Olson Student Center, running from 9 a.m. until noon and 6 p.m. until 9 p.m.
The information garnered at those four meetings will be used to identify issues that will be analyzed by an Environmental Impact Statement being conducted by the MDA. That EIS will consider four sites in the United States that are under consideration. These include the SERE facility in Redington Township as well as the Camp Ravenna Joint Military Training Center in Ohio, Fort Drum in New York and Fort Custer Training Center in Michigan. A previously-mentioned site in Vermont is not included in the scope of the EIS.
The Department of Defense has not made any decision to construct or deploy a Continental United States Interceptor Site.
“We invite the community to learn more about the CIS project and we welcome and encourage feedback,” said Rick Lehner, an MDA representative, in a statement released Friday evening. “It’s a chance to ask questions, talk with subject matter experts, submit comments and receive additional information about the project.”
Once the draft EIS is complete, the MDA will hold another set of public meetings to present findings and solicit additional public input.
According to a notice of intent to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement, the MDA indicates that if constructed, the new site would consist of an initial deployment of 20 ground-based interceptors, designed to shoot down incoming ballistic missiles. The site could eventually expand its interceptor count to as many as 60 units. Other elements of the CIS would consist of launch equipment, communication systems and lodging and other support facilities.
The notice indicates that the site would not be used to conduct test firings.
The EIS will consider the four locations as well as a “No-Action Alternative.”
According to the MDA, the meetings will be in an open house format, in order to both provide information as well as collect comments. MDA will also accept written comment until Sept. 15 through either email, by faxing (913)458-1091 or by mailing: Black & Veatch Special Projects Corp; Attn: MDA CIS EIS; 6601 College Boulevard; Overland Park, KS 66211-1504.
More information can be found here, on the MDA’s website.
Is this a joke? Are we finally admitting Canada is massing for invasion? After all, 90% of their population is within 50 miles of the US border. I am betting they are angry over not winning the Stanley Cup in a while, Will the next step be internment camps for people with French names? I knew the border issue in Texas was a Canadian plot to divert critical defense measures from the northern border zones.
Please don’t tell me this is an ICBM intercept system. Right now, Maine is not even on the Russian list of targets. Build an ICBM intercept system(in violation of the ABM treaty no less) and we become the first thing targeted by land, sea and those tunnels the Russians have been digging………. This must be a joke. Is it April 1?
STEVE :THANK YOU . RIGHT ON !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
“A man who has nothing which he is willing to fight for, nothing which he cares more about than he does about his personal safety, is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. — John Stuart Mill
If they intend to have any windmills there- that will kill the idea in a heartbeat.
Build all the missile silos you want, fill em with enough nukes to blow up the planet- but please, please, no wind mills, they’ll detract from the beauty of the mountains.
That J.S. Mill quote is very thought-provoking, thank you for sharing it here.