80 near fort learn why road to close

FORT CHAFFEE -- Fort Chaffee base commander Col. Ronald Brazell said Tuesday that residents living near the post's southeastern end can expect plenty of advance notice anytime a 1-mile section of Rattlesnake Canyon Road is closed for live-fire training.

Brazell spoke to approximately 80 area residents in the Fort Chaffee post theater to answer questions about the decision to put up new gates at two points along the road, and about how often the gates will be closed and what they will mean for travel in the area.

In 2012, construction began on the Convoy Live-Fire Range near the eastern end of the base, which features more than 20 ranges for everything from small-arms fire to artillery. The new range is designed to provide training opportunities for National Guardsmen and other military units on firing vehicle-mounted .50-caliber machine guns and Mk-19 automatic grenade launchers from moving convoys. Lt. Col. Keith Moore, a spokesman for the base, said smaller firearms, such as rifles and rifle-mounted grenade launchers, will not be used on the range.

A "ricochet hazard assessment" performed during the design phase for the range recommended that the 1-mile section of Rattlesnake Canyon Road, which runs north-south along the eastern edge of the range, be closed during training events. Although participants will be firing toward the west, away from the road, Brazell said the safety concern was enough to justify the closures.

"There's the one-in-a-millionth ricochet that could hit that road," Brazell said. "That's too much for us to deal with."

In January, two gates were installed at the north and south ends of the portion of the road that transects the base. Although the range will not be operational until October and the gates have not yet been closed, area residents have voiced concern that not only will gate closures be an inconvenience, they may pose a hazard during a life-threatening emergency.

Brazell said range officers, and emergency management and medical personnel will have keys or the lock combinations to open the gates.

Amanda Scott, who lives on Hamilton Hill Road near the closure area, said she wouldn't wait for emergency medical services personnel to arrive if she has an emergency.

"If I have an emergency, I'm not waiting on EMS. I called them one time, and they said they'd call me back," Scott said. "If that gate's closed, I'm going to come to a locked gate with someone not breathing, or any kind of circumstances like that? I just feel like you all did not consider the fact that there are families that live out here."

There are no homes that can be accessed only from the 1-mile stretch of Rattlesnake Canyon Road in the closure area, although any nonemergency driver needing to reroute around the closure will face a 20-25-mile detour, relying on Arkansas highways 217, 23 and 10.

Brazell and Moore said the road would probably be closed an average of 30 nonconsecutive days each year. Brazell said base personnel would offer as much forewarning of closures as possible. Closures would be based on training schedules.

Several residents asked why base personnel would put a weapons range so close to a road traveled by civilians in the first place. Brazell answered that as available space becomes increasingly scarce, powerful modern weaponry requires greater distances between shooters and their targets in realistic training scenarios.

"We are legitimately out of space," Brazell said.

In early June, the base drew attention after a 155mm high-explosive artillery round, fired in an easterly direction from an artillery range several miles to the west, landed on the property of Brian Martin, who lives on Rattlesnake Canyon Road. Shrapnel from the impact tore multiple holes in Martin's workshop and home, about 500 feet away. His wife, who was home at the time of the impact, was not injured, Martin said.

Martin said Fort Chaffee promised to pay for repairs to his property, and that the lowest bid he had received from a contractor so far was about $103,000.

The unit that fired the errant round was the 1st Battalion, 129th Field Artillery Regiment, based in Maryville, Mo. An investigation was conducted by Brazell's command, although the results are not being released until the Missouri National Guard completes its own investigation.

Brazell said the decision to erect the gates and close the road during live-fire exercises at the convoy range are unrelated to the artillery round that damaged Martin's property.

"The reason we're closing the gate is for ricochet hazards from something other than artillery," Brazell said. "There's not a gate that's going to prevent an artillery round from going off this post."

NW News on 07/24/2014

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