Shoalwater Bay Military Training Area
The Shoalwater Bay Military Training Area encompasses 454,500 hectares (4,545 km²), which includes the Warginburra Peninsula, the Torilla Peninsula east of the Stanage Bay Road, Townshend and Leicester Islands, and a sizable chunk of the Shoalwater Bay hinterland north of the village of Byfield. Suggestions that the Shoalwater Bay region be acquired for the purpose of a training ground first appeared in 1960. The army formally took control of the land on 1 July 1965; by the following year, the last landholder had vacated his property. The training area was used by troops who were deployed to the Vietnam War.
In 2005 the federal government entered into a long-term agreement with the US over the use of Shoalwater Bay for military training purposes. Similar agreements over a shorter time span have been agreed to with the Singapore Ministry of Defence.
Military exercises with the United States have aroused considerable controversy in the Rockhampton-Yeppoon area, due to the threat of environmental damage to the Shoalwater Bay region. In recent years, concern has been raised about the possibility of depleted uranium weaponry been used during training exercises at Shoalwater Bay. Peace activists protesting Exercise Talisman Saber were arrested in 2009.
Support for a permanent US presence has been expressed by the former Rockhampton mayor, Brad Carter in 2011, and by current mayor, Margaret Strelow.
Read more about this topic: Shoalwater Bay
Famous quotes containing the words bay, military, training and/or area:
“The very dogs that sullenly bay the moon from farm-yards in these nights excite more heroism in our breasts than all the civil exhortations or war sermons of the age.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I really do inhabit a system in which words are capable of shaking the entire structure of government, where words can prove mightier than ten military divisions.”
—Václav Havel (b. 1936)
“There is all the difference in the world between departure from recognised rules by one who has learned to obey them, and neglect of them through want of training or want of skill or want of understanding. Before you can be eccentric you must know where the circle is.”
—Ellen Terry (1847–1928)
“Prosperous farmers mean more employment, more prosperity for the workers and the business men of ... every industrial area in the whole country.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)