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Coast Guard Plans Live-Fire Exercises

Posted on: Wednesday, 20 September 2006, 15:00 CDT

By JOHN FLESHER

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. - Margo Marks operates a ferry service on Lake Michigan and has nothing but respect for the Coast Guard. But she shudders at the thought of machine gun bullets whizzing over the water.

"It's probably not real appealing to the general public to be transported over a live-fire zone," said Marks, whose company hauls passengers and freight between the mainland town of Charlevoix and Beaver Island, 32 miles away.

The Coast Guard is stirring up a storm with plans to establish 34 live-fire zones across the Great Lakes for training exercises that it says are vital to homeland security. Boaters and ferry operators fear getting caught in the line of the fire.

"This is a bad idea thought up by people that watch too much `Miami Vice,'" Bruce Leidal, a Lake Huron sailor who docks at Port Sanilac, told the Coast Guard.

The exercises would take place two or three times a year, with each session lasting four to six hours. Crews would shoot at floating targets with M240-B automatic rifles aboard cutters, rescue boats and other vessels.

"The public expect us to be on the watch and ready to respond to anything that may happen," said Chief Petty Officer Robert Lanier, a Coast Guard spokesman in Cleveland.

The exercises would be at least five miles offshore, in remote areas where they would pose little if any risk to civilian vessels, Lanier said.

But some of the proposed firing zones overlap established ferry routes, including Marks' Beaver Island run and those that transport cars across Lake Michigan.

A flurry of complaints prompted the Coast Guard to postpone a final decision and extend its public-comment period from August until Nov. 13.

The Guard already has conducted two dozen live-fire sessions this year using temporary firing zones. Another session took place last week in Lake Superior, eight miles offshore from Minnesota, angering the mayor of nearby Duluth.

Guard officials have pledged to take extensive precautions, promising to notify the local media in advance broadcast warnings on marine-band radio. During the exercises, a safety boat will patrol nearby to head off civilian craft that draw near.

"We're not going to go willy-nilly shooting all over the Great Lakes," Lanier said. "It will be a very controlled exercise. It can be stopped any time there's a safety problem."

But critics say some boaters do not tune in to maritime radio and may not hear the warnings. And even those who do could blunder into the line of fire.

Some operators of marinas, charter fishing boats and related tourism businesses fear word of the target practice will send customers elsewhere.

Mike Bradley, mayor of Sarnia, Ontario, urged Canada's prime minister to intervene, saying the gunfire would create tension along the border.

In written comments, some people said target practice might be acceptable if the number of zones were reduced and their locations adjusted.

Marks, the ferry operator, said the exercises would be better scheduled for December or April, when her business makes few runs. Moving the exercises would be better still, she said, because detouring around the firing zone would lengthen the trip by a half-hour and raise her company's fuel costs by up to $18,000 a year.

Some comments submitted to the Coast Guard have supported training to confront terrorists and drug runners.

"Our defensive weapons are only as good as the training given to those who use them," wrote Butch Greiffendorf of Grand Junction. "Remember, if evil comes, they will bring all they have. Don't shortchange our Coast Guard!"

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On the Net:

Coast Guard Ninth District: http://www.d9publicaffairs.com/go/site/443

Source: Associated Press/AP Online

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