tonopah test range, dead horses

Ran across this in the Las Vegas news:

Nevada Senator Harry Reid wants to know what killed 71 wild horses on the Nellis Air Force Base Range. The BLM says high concentrations of nitrates killed the horses. Now the senator wants the Pentagon to launch a full scale investigation to find out how the nitrates got in the horses drinking water.

full story

what do you think?

Originally posted by random hero
Ran across this in the Las Vegas news:

Nevada Senator Harry Reid wants to know what killed 71 wild horses on the Nellis Air Force Base Range. The BLM says high concentrations of nitrates killed the horses. Now the senator wants the Pentagon to launch a full scale investigation to find out how the nitrates got in the horses drinking water.

full story

what do you think?

The claim is the deicing fluids are the source of the contamination. Reality? Who knows. These newspaper articles make it sound like no outsider can get access to the TTR. I know for a fact this is not the case. In the late 90s, I met a guy whose RV was parked at the gravel by the ET Highway. It turns out his RV needed repairs. To keep the story short, it turns out he was doing bird surveys for the state of Nevada via UNVL. It turns out he was an electrician that had worked at the TTR, but was now retired. Anyway, he did a bird survey at the TTR. He stayed at the mancamp, so I gather this took some time. He had a "minder" from the base, since they couldn't let him wander the TTR with binocs and a camera. So the powers that be can get onto the TTR and get the real cause of the horse death, though it might take some time.

The TTR has all sorts of nasty stuff on it. It was the site of 3 "dirty bomb" experiments, it has a depleted uranium storage site, and lots of spent explosives and rocket fuel.

Back in 1983 I remember my dad telling my mom about a couple A-7 Corsair pilots (he was a Crew Chief/Mechanic in the 4450 Test Group) that came back from missions and they bragged from time to time about strafing wild horses on the Gunnery Range. I've also heard stories of A-10 pilots doing it too! Anyway, I thought that was interesting.
There is a lot of stuff that goes on at the Test Range, past and present......I'm surprised anything that lives there doesn't have 3 eyes, 5 legs, 2 heads, etc.
IMO, Harry Reid needs to quit trying to promote his tree-hugging side and get back to work--although I'm sure its a nice break from bashing the president!

This area of Nevada is designated a Gunnery/Test Range. NOT A WILDLIFE REFUGE

Originally posted by CreeWolf
Back in 1983 I remember my dad telling my mom about a couple A-7 Corsair pilots (he was a Crew Chief/Mechanic in the 4450 Test Group) that came back from missions and they bragged from time to time about strafing wild horses on the Gunnery Range. I've also heard stories of A-10 pilots doing it too! Anyway, I thought that was interesting.
There is a lot of stuff that goes on at the Test Range, past and present......I'm surprised anything that lives there doesn't have 3 eyes, 5 legs, 2 heads, etc.
IMO, Harry Reid needs to quit trying to promote his tree-hugging side and get back to work--although I'm sure its a nice break from bashing the president!

This area of Nevada is designated a Gunnery/Test Range. NOT A WILDLIFE REFUGE

Much of the range is used for electronic warfare, i.e. simulated. The live bombing areas are a small percentage of the range.

I doubt many horses were killed via strafing. It would be too easy to detect. Besides, killing a horse is on par with killing a dog.

I actually work at TTR and saw about 5 of the horses on the road heading through out extremely bloated. After a day or so of being dead they were all cut up and mutilated probly from a coyote or something. But it wasnt just horses some other smaller animals died but not in such quantities. The horses didnt come around for a few weeks after that and there just now starting to come back.