EGLIN AFB, Fla. – Beginning in pre-WWI through the 1970s, tons of military munitions has been dumped into coastal waters of the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico. The GoM continues to be a repository for munitions, but under federally-monitored safety and environmental controls. About 120,000 square miles of the eastern GoM, along with 724 square miles on land, is the Eglin Gulf Test & Training Range managed by the 96th Test Wing at Eglin AFB. It is the test and training range used by all of the military services. The 96th TW is responsible for development, acquisition, testing, deployment and sustainment of all air-delivered non-nuclear military weapons. The Gulf range hosts air-to-air missile testing, hypersonic weapons testing, bomb testing, drone targeting, space launches and high-altitude supersonic air combat training. “Weapons testing and training at Eglin Air Force Base over the Gulf of Mexico is vital to the success of the war-fighter, the Air Force, and our nation,” Eglin officials noted in an email to the NW Florida Daily News. Discharges into the GoM are conducted with strict attention to human safety, and federally regulated protection of certain species of marine life; specifically, bottlenose dolphins and sperm or baleen whales. (Source: NW Florida Daily News 07/20/19) The AF expends about 550 bombs, 580 missiles, 1,218,000 rounds of ammunition, and 637,000 countermeasures into the range, according to a May 2018 report from the Secretary of Defense. Those levels are within (87%) of established federal regulations authorized under the National Environmental Policy Act. The range extends from Hurlburt Field east to Tyndall AFB and Carrabelle, Fla., and more than 100 miles south into the GoM.
Shipbuilding and maritime related news from the Central Gulf Coast region
