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Sunday, July 1, 2001
Bombing range battle looms
Some Kenedy County residents don't approve of Navy training proposal
By Jeremy Schwartz
Caller-Times

David Adame/Caller-Times

Leeroy Lerma removes the saddle of his mare Sissy on Wednesday in his front yard. Residents of Sarita, where Lerma lives, say the Navy’s proposed bombing range would damage the area’s character and history.


   SARITA - Silence and solitude attracted Dervilla Byrne, an Irish Sister of Mercy, to a remote religious retreat deep in the brush of Kenedy County.
   For 40 days, Byrne will join the dozen other spiritual seekers at the Lebh Shomea House of Prayer in wordless meditation and communion with God, nature and herself.
   For almost 30 years, religious seekers and hermits have come to a remote part of Kenedy County in search of peace.
   But it's a peace they fear will be shattered by a plan to place a Navy bombing range and training area on 222,000 acres of ranch land three to five miles from Lebh Shomea.
   "The place would have no meaning," Byrne said. "The essence of it is its stillness."

David Adame/Caller-Times

Religious seekers and hermits come to the Lebh Shomea House of Prayer in Kenedy County seeking peace. The Rev. Francis Kelly Nemeck, Lebh Shomea spokesman, believes such a bombing range would disturb the tranquility of the retreat.

   Public protest and bad publicity helped push the U.S. Navy off of its bombing range in Vieques, Puerto Rico.
   Now forces are marshaling in South Texas to oppose a proposal to put Vieques' replacement on the Kenedy Ranch by 2003. "I'm utterly outraged at the proposal," said the Rev. Francis Kelly Nemeck, a spokesman for the Lebh Shomea House of Prayer. "But even deeper than the rage is the sadness of losing this land. We would be collateral damage."
   Although Lebh Shomea is not inside the proposed military area, its three full-time holy people fear the range would destroy the retreat's purpose.
   The Kenedy County site is one of about seven in the United States and Caribbean being considered as a replacement for the Puerto Rican bombing range. A soon-to-be created panel is expected to recommend a replacement site by October.
   Texas study was kept quiet

   Last week, President Bush decided to pull out of Vieques after years of protests from Puerto Ricans claiming the bombing range there was causing environmental and economic damage to the island.
   At the request of the Navy, local economic development officials began studying the feasibility of the South Texas site two or three years ago, but were told by the Navy to keep the idea quiet.
   Proponents envision a multipurpose training area that would include amphibious landing training and serve all branches of the military.
   They also have said sparsely populated Kenedy County and the distance of the proposed range from population centers make it attractive. Bombing on Vieques took place eight to 10 miles from the nearest town, but advocates say Kenedy County's largest town would be further away from the impact zone.
   The training center would ensure the viability of the area's three military bases and pump dollars into local economies through construction and jobs, proponents say.
   Former Kenedy County Sheriff Rafael Cuellar said he thinks residents will band against the idea. "We're going to fight, fight," he said. "I think that 99 percent of the people are against it including myself, because, why us?"
   Kenedy County is home to 414 residents, the majority of whom live in the county seat of Sarita.

David Adame/Caller-Times

The Rev. Francis Kelly Nemeck walks past a family of javelina outside the Chapel of the Little Children at Lebh Shomea House of Prayer Wednesday. Nemeck has voiced publicly his opposition to the proposed Navy bombing range in South Texas. ‘I’m utterly outraged at the proposal,’ he said. ‘But even deeper than the rage is the sadness of losing this land.’

   Such backlash was what proponents and officials were trying to avoid by keeping the proposal quiet.
   'Look at the entire picture'
   At a recent House Armed Services Committee hearing, Rep. Solomon Ortiz, D-Corpus Christi, said that when word surfaced in the media June 21 about interest in the Kingsville-area tract, it interrupted a behind-the-scenes local effort to build backing for the plan before airing it publicly.
   "I'm going to support what the people want," Ortiz said this week. "I haven't talked to the local officials down there yet. I don't know what the landowners want. We need to look at the entire picture."
   Affecting character, history
   Many in Sarita say the bombing range would damage an irreplaceable part of the area's character and history, and would bring economic upheaval to residents who depend on the ranch land in question for their livelihood.
   "It would probably shut the town down, along with (the ranch)," said Mike East, who leases and manages the San Pedro Kenedy Ranch, located on land the government may be interested in. Like most in Sarita, East learned of the proposal after reading about it in the newspaper.

Contributed photo

The Kenedy Ranch is one of seven sites in the United States and Caribbean being considered by the Navy as a replacement for the Vieques bombing range. This is how the ranch headquarters looked circa 1940.

   Most of the people here work for the ranch and live in homes owned by it.
   Under a preliminary plan drawn up by local officials, the government would take all 175,000 acres of land belonging to the John G. Kenedy Jr. Charitable Trust, which is leased to East and known locally as the San Pedro Kenedy Ranch.
   Because the land's former owner, Elena Kenedy, decreed the land should remain untouched by development and be used for ranching, the trustees cannot sell the land. The plan is for the government to condemn the land and give the trust fair market value, estimated at hundreds of millions of dollars.
   The trustees - representatives with Frost Bank and Elena Kenedy's nephew Pablo Seuss of Nuevo Laredo, Mexico - could not be reached for comment.
   Foundation was surprised
   The Navy is also looking at 48,000 acres of neighboring land belonging to the John G. and Marie Stella Kenedy Memorial Foundation. Like the trust, the foundation land cannot be sold. Its profits go to Catholic charities.
   Foundation chairman J.A. Garcia, Kenedy County judge, and Bishop Edmond Carmody of the Diocese of Corpus Christi, who sits on the foundation board, could not be reached for comment.

Contributed photo

Elena Suess Kenedy’s will said her ranch land would become a charitable trust, not to be used for anything except ranching.

   Foundation attorney Richard Leshin said the proposed training area came as a surprise and that board members have not been given a formal presentation. The board is expected to discuss the idea at its next meeting.
   But while the Charitable Trust would continue functioning under the plan, San Pedro Kenedy Ranch's days would come to an end.
   Like most of his neighbors in Sarita, Ernesto Lerma lives in a house owned by the San Pedro Kenedy Ranch. But Lerma, who was a former cowboy on the ranch for 17 years, said he is worried he could lose it if the training area comes to town.
   "I don't go for it," he said.
   Lerma's son, Roger Lerma, took a less subdued approach. "It sucks," said Lerma, 38. "You might never know where a damn bomb's going to fall. I know it's a small community, but people live around here."
   Unintended consequences
   Tobin Armstrong, a Kenedy County Commissioner and owner of a ranch just south of the proposed range, said that although the proposal needs more study, his initial feeling is that it's a bad idea.
   He said the bombing and training activities could have some unintended consequences environmentally, including ripping off surface grasses and clays and creating monster sand storms.
   Armstrong also expressed concern that the range could hurt commercial and recreational fishing in Baffin Bay and the Laguna Madre, as well as threaten the county's tax revenues from the significant oil and gas fields on the land in question.
   "A huge percentage of the county's tax base is from oil and gas," he said. "I haven't made up my mind conclusively, but I've not been sold on the idea by anyone I've talked to yet."

David Adame/Caller-Times

Sister Dervilla Byrne reads in her quarters at Lebh Shomea House of Prayer Wednesday. Byrne said it was the silence and solitude that attracted her to the retreat in Sarita. However, visitors to the retreat fear a Navy bombing range would rob them of their peace.

   Gary Bushell, a consultant for the Corpus Christi Chamber of Commerce who worked on the proposal, said some oil and gas operations could continue on the land in areas away from the live fire.
   And Bushell said that although noise impact studies haven't been done, the ordnance would likely sound like distant thunder to the range's closest neighbors at the retreat.
   "Are you going to please everyone?" Bushell said. "No, but they will try to be good neighbors if they come."
   Kenedy County Commissioners will discuss the proposal at what is expected to be a well-attended commissioners court meeting at 9 a.m. Monday at the Kenedy County Courthouse in Sarita.
   Targeting a maze of history
   By targeting Kenedy County, the government is entering the maze-like history of the Kenedy family.
   The vast Kenedy Ranch, founded by former steamboat operator Mifflin Kenedy last century, was split in two after the death of John G. Kenedy Sr. and his wife Marie Stella Turcotte. Half of the almost half-million-acre ranch went to his daughter Sarita Kenedy East, while the other half went to John G. Kenedy Jr., who died in 1948, and his wife Elena, who died in 1984.
   Both Sarita and Elena were deeply religious women who had close relationships with local clergy. Neither had children, and both willed their estates to charitable endeavors. When Sarita died in 1961, she gave the Kenedy family home and the surrounding area to the Missionary Society of the Oblate Fathers of Texas, which founded Lebh Shomea on that land shortly afterward.
   Her estate was caught in a maelstrom of legal challenges that lasted decades, ultimately becoming the foundation as it exists today.
   Learning from the experience of Sarita, Elena made specific directions in her will when she died, Nemeck said.
   Her land was to become a charitable trust and could not be sold or used for anything but ranching. Profits from the ranching were to go to the Oblate Fathers and money from oil and gas drilling were to go to five other Catholic charities - Incarnate Word Academy, Spohn Hospital, the Diocese of Corpus Christi, Our Lady of the Lake University and the Pax Christi Institute.
   Elena also spelled out her vision of the land and its relationship to the people of Kenedy County. A $2 million fund was set aside to pay for water and sewage bills for the people of Sarita and ranch owned homes were provided for ranch workers and retirees.
   The ranch was meant to remain pristine as well, and Elena in her will outlawed hunting on her property.
   "She had such an appreciation of nature and what it means to human beings," Nemeck said. "She would be totally devastated. She didn't even want the firing of a gun, much less the dropping of bombs."
   Environmental opposition
   Environmental activists are also seeking to harness opposition against the plan and influence lawmakers before they approve a Vieques replacement.
   "What we want to do is make an impression on the Navy that this will be just as big a headache as Vieques," said Fred Richardson, communication director for the Lone Star chapter of the Sierra Club. "I think it could be a really broad coalition."
   The movement also has attracted veteran Texas political figures, including Jim Boren, aide to former Texas Sen. Ralph Yarborough in the 1960s. Boren worked with Yarborough to pass the federal legislation creating the Padre Island National Seashore and said he'll do whatever it takes to keep the national park unspoiled by military convoys.
   "I'm going to become actively involved to stop this from happening," said Boren, who teaches political science at Northeastern State University in Oklahoma. He added that he will use his contacts in Washington, D.C., and Texas to build opposition to the idea and influence lawmakers.
   Nemeck also promises a fight.
   "If you think the Puerto Ricans were tenacious in getting the Americans out of Vieques, you will find the little people around here will be even more tenacious," he said.


Contact Jeremy Schwartz at 886-3779_or schwartzj@caller.com

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