The VWA, working with other local conservation groups, successfully challenged, and defeated, the US Navy's proposal to create a new practice bombing range on Fort Hunter Liggett, adjacent to the Ventana and Silver Peak Wilderness Areas. The Navy's proposal would have allowed over 3,000 F-18 practice bombing runs each year.
VWA Board Member Tom Hopkins confronted Interior Secretary Gail Norton about the Navy proposal during a condor release in Big Sur on April 5, 2001 (see below). Even as the birds were taking wing, the Navy was moving ahead with plans to approve the bombing range within miles of the release site.
Tom was quoted in an April 6, 2001 San Jose Mercury News story by Paul Rogers:
"If she fails to oppose the Navy's plan, then her presence here is hypocritical." said Tom Hopkins, a spokesman for the Ventana Wilderness Alliance, an environmental group. "The birds she released today would be right in the flight paths of fighter jets."
