Senate backs big land transfer for Nevada military complex

By GABE STERN
Associated Press/Report for America

RENO, Nev. (AP) — The U.S. Senate has passed a massive expansion of a northern Nevada naval air training complex that will transfer a huge swath of public land to the military. The bill passed Thursday designates 872 additional square miles of land for military training at the Naval Air Station Fallon east of Reno. It also designates land for conservation and wilderness, as well as land and funds for two Native American tribes and Churchill County, where the Fallon complex is located. The expansion has taken years of negotiations between the Navy, conservationists, counties and Native American tribes who consider the land to be sacred.