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Battle Lines Drawn: Potrero residents fight against proposed
Blackwater military training camp
By Miriam Raftery
The Alpine Sun
Editor’s note:
This is the first in a three part-series on Blackwater USA’s
proposed military-style training camp in Potrero. In part one,
community members voice noise, traffic and fire safety, and
environmental concerns, while Blackwater contends the site is
appropriate for its facility, and will not negatively impact the
area. Part two, which will run next week, documents residents’
fight with local governing boards to block the proposed project.
Part three, which will run April 19, will note congressional
scrutiny Blackwater has faced for its Iraq War contracts.
POTRERO — Dana Raum and her husband purchased property
in Potrero three years ago because the small rural hamlet was
peaceful and beautiful. Now Raum, who is building a home near
the site of a proposed military-style training camp, has grave
concerns regarding the project.
Situated in the Cleveland National Forest on a former
chicken ranch the property includes a protected agricultural
preserve on the rim of the Hauser Wilderness area in San Diego’s
East County.
Blackwater USA has proposed an 824-acre training camp
on the site. At stake, residents say, is the rural character of
a community that traces its roots to the 19th century – or the
future expansion of one of the world’s most powerful
corporations.
“I believe we are being railroaded into this disaster,”
Baum said.
Battle lines have been drawn over the controversial
project. More than 300 residents – which is more than half the
town’s registered voters and over a third of the entire
population of 850 – joined by environmentalists and citizens’
groups, have signed a “Save Potrero” petition opposing the
project. Many say that planners have fast-tracked the project
without adequate public input.
A Feb. 22 commentary by Don Bauder in the San Diego
Weekly Reader said Potrero residents are being “ambushed,” and
that “the attackers are county bureaucrats marching alongside
Blackwater USA, the private military contractor that is getting
so much bad press while being labeled one of the biggest
mercenary firms in the Iraq War.”
A source close to the “Save Potrero” effort said
residents are even looking into recalling members of the Potrero
Planning Board who voted in favor of the project.
Potrero’s Planning Board voted 7-0 in favor of the
project in December, with two members absent. The Board declined
to reconsider its vote in January, despite substantial community
opposition. Raum said she was not notified of the December
hearing.
The proposal is now under consideration by the County
Department of Planning and Land Use (DPLU), but may ultimately
be decided by the County Board of Supervisors.
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| Above,
residents filled the room at a Potrero Planning Group
meeting last month. Representatives from Blackwater USA
presented the project to residents. Below, this is the
Potrero property that Blackwater USA is hoping to purchase
for its military training camp. |
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Scope of
the project
Headquartered in Moyock, N.C., Blackwater operates a
6,000-acre base where it provides military, law enforcement,
security, peacekeeping and stability operations to the U.S.
government, private companies and in some cases, foreign
governments. The company has profited substantially from U.S.
government contracts in Iraq. Blackwater and other private
contractors have also attracted scrutiny of Congressional
inquiries in recent weeks.
The Potrero project would include firing ranges
utilizing automatic and semi-automatic weapons, as well as an
emergency vehicle operator’s course 3,280 feet in length –
longer than ten football fields, according to a Blackwater West
Training Facility project description on file with the County
DPLU.
Bunkhouses and commando-type training facilities
including ship simulators, law enforcement and rescue safety
training towers and a helicopter pad would also be included.
Blackwater Vice President Brian Bonfiglio said the
Potrero project would be significantly smaller than the Moyock
facility. The secluded Potrero location, protected by
600-foot-high canyon walls, was chosen after requests to
commanders at Miramar and Camp Pendleton military bases were
rejected due to lack of space and concerns over traffic and
environmental issues, including air quality, Bonfiglio said.
“We propose law enforcement and military training,
because the facilities in this area are shrinking,” he said.
“The college is shutting down the training facility that law
enforcement has used at Miramar.”
The project would be strictly a “training facility, not
an operations facility,” said Bonfiglio, who noted that U.S.
Border Patrol agents could also be trained at the site.
Blackwater has also offered a law enforcement sub-station on
site, he added.
A Blackwater executive recently testified before
Congress seeking to expand privatization of training for Border
Patrol forces, also touting a blimp that could be used to
monitor border activities. Bonfiglio denied that a blimp would
be stationed at the Potrero site. He also said the helicopter
pad would be used only for emergencies and could benefit the
community in case of a medical or other emergency situation. He
also denied that a new Blackwater armored personnel carrier
called the “Grizzly” would be used at Potrero.
Asked if explosives would be used at the camp, he
replied, “No bombs. No tanks, no heavy artillery.”
However, multiple records on file with the County
indicate “hazards” could include “explosives” to be stored in an
“armory” on site.
Residents in Moyock, North Carolina have complained of
“loud booms” and “regular rattle of machine gun fire,” according
to Jeremy Scahill, author of “Blackwater: The Rise of the
World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army,” a book slated to hit
store shelves March 19.
Scahill said Potrero residents should not trust
Blackwater. Blackwater originally told Moyock residents that it
would be running a “sportsman’s paradise” that would primarily
be used as a shooting range, Scahill said.
“What it’s become is now the world’s largest private
military base,” he added.
The Moyock facility now includes SWAT training,
paratrooper landings, an aviation division with more than 20
aircraft, full takeoff and landing strips under construction, a
mock high school (modeled to train for school disasters), and a
man-made lake used for amphibious landing training.
Scahill said the Moyock site is the world’s premier
private training facility for commandos. “We’ve seen every
manner of U.S. special forces come through that compound for
training,” Scahill said. “Gun enthusiasts come through.”
Blackwater has also “brought Chilean mercenaries, some
trained under Pinochet” to Moyock for evaluation, Scahill said.
Many, but not all, Blackwater trainees are former U.S. military
personnel.
“A lot of their men on the ground are highly trained,
patriotic Americans, some of whom are looking to extend their
national services through other means,” Scahill noted. Others,
he said, are in it for the profit.
Traffic and fire safety
Standing outside the Potrero General Store, opened in
1883, a Potrero resident noted the small town’s road conditions.
“This road was built for a buggy and a horse,” said
Jesse, who asked that his last name not be published.
Residents have voiced concerns over excess traffic the
proposed project would create on Potrero Road and Round Potrero
Road, which measures just 20 feet wide in places. Blackwater
proposes to bus in local trainees and shuttle others from the
airport. The company said its vehicles would be no larger than
trucks that previously traveled to a chicken ranch the property
used to house.
Carl Meyer, a farmer and former Potrero Planning Board
member, provided documents from the DPLU indicating Blackwater
sought to have standards changed to avoid widening roads or
providing secondary access routes.
Fire safety is another concern residents have. A
summary of Blackwater West Project’s team meeting on September
26, 2006 indicated that Jim Hunt “has provided strong support
for defend-in-place” and noted in a draft Fire protection plan
that secondary access alternatives “are likely more dangerous
than defend in place.”
Bonfiglio said Blackwater has proposed a
defend-in-place strategy to local fire authorities and that the
company offered to provide a “safe haven for the community” at
its facility in the event of a wildfire. The company plans to
have water storage tanks, buildings built to County standards
for shelter-in-place, and grass/foliage trimmed to meet codes,
he said.
But critics warn that the county’s shelter-in-place
plan could prove a death sentence in the event of a firestorm
similar to the 2003 Cedar Fire, which killed 12 people in nearby
Wildcat Canyon.
“This strategy has, to my knowledge, never been put to
the test on a large scale during a major wild land fire,” said
Joseph W. Mitchell of M-bar Technologies and Consulting in
Ramona, in response to the County’s shelter in place proposal.
“There are reasons to believe that it could lead to civilian and
firefighter deaths and injuries as currently envisioned.”
Citizens on an online land-use forum, Ranter’s Roost,
criticized the Blackwater defend-in-place proposal, which one
Ranter called “cremate in place.” A web site called Liar! Liar!
County’s on Fire (www.llcfire.com),
has been set up to alert people countywide about dangers of the
proposed defend-in-place strategy.
Environmental issues
“I was born fighting,” said Army veteran and
environmentalist Duncan McFetridge, who is leading citizens’
efforts to block Blackwater’s plan. “This is a contest.
Blackwater is very good at what they do – and Save Our Forests
and Ranchlands (SOFAR) is good at what we do, too.”
Formidable competitors, McFetridge and SOFAR have
successfully blocked other major proposed developments,
including an RV park in nearby Descanso, where he cited
University of California at Davis tracking data on mountain
lions as evidence that destroying meadowlands would decimate
cougar populations.
Blackwater’s project also lies in a sensitive
meadowland frequented by deer and mountain lion, he said.
“Our forest is under threat,” said McFetridge, citing
dramatic shrinkage of national forest lands in recent years.
“Meadowlands are the biological heart of our forest. We cannot
lose our meadowlands without losing our forest.”
In addition to nesting eagles and mountain lions, the
property contains threatened plant and butterfly species,
according to environmental documents on file with the county.
Oddly, county records indicate that Blackwater’s
proposed site does not contain wetlands. However, an on-site
visit appeared to have been made during dry summer months.
Other concerns of residents include potential well
water contamination and air pollution.
“There is a woman there who has a facility for
chemically sensitive individuals. It’s been there for years,
founded on government grants. The reason they came out here to
begin with was that Potrero was one of the last bastions of
clean air,” said Jan Hedlun, a newly elected member of the
Potrero Planning board who opposes the Blackwater project.
Asked about residents’ concerns, Bonfiglio countered,
“There has been no NOP [Notification of Preparation]. No
technical studies have been approved yet…There are people
concerned about habitat and open space, but they are doing it
based on no science, no information.”
Concerns over potential air pollution are “jumping the
gun” he said.
An October 23, 2006 Internal Working Draft titled
“Blackwater West Project Issues/Action Items” obtained by The
East County Californian, however, identified several potential
“fatal flaws” in the Potrero project, including primary
access/public vs. private road, traffic concerns, and golden
eagle nests.
Next week: Potrero community members
fight local government to block Blackwater’s proposal.
 E-mail
Christy Scott
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