HOUSTON -- On a lonely stretch of beach 70 miles south of Galveston, there sit two enormous airfields that are a reminder of a Texas past. But might they be a concern for the area’s security in the future?
"These are massive structures," said Rep. Ted Poe, the Republican congressman from Kingwood. "There’s nobody there."
"They’re former Army Air Corp bases. They were built there during World War II," explains Rick Harris, an aviation historian with the Collings Foundation. "There was just nothing to disturb. So put a bombing range there, you’re not going to hurt anything."
The landing strips are as long as those at Ellington Field in Houston, where Air Force One lands for presidential visits. Not only are the old runways intact, some of the old military barracks and Quonset huts remain. There’s even a well-preserved boat dock.
One of the abandoned airfields is on the northernmost tip of Matagorda Island and is now part of the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge. The other is 10 miles north on a thin peninsula and is still in use, owned Houston-area businessman. Both fields are cut off from the mainland, accessible only by boat or aircraft.
During World War II, crews practiced dropping bombs on the islands and out in the water, skills that would later help win the war in Germany and Japan. The bombing range was used for years, up through the Vietnam War. There are even rumors it was a staging area in the 1980’s for covert government aid to rebels in Nicaragua.
"The runways were there outside prying eyes, that sort of thing," said Harris.
The airfields were perfect because of their remote location and weather in Texas that allowed lots of clear days for flying. But now, for those same reasons, could they be perfect for smuggling drugs or people into the country?
"Abandoned air bases are like Christmas to drug dealers," said Poe.
He cites warnings from federal drug agents who have said for years that smugglers have been using clandestine landing sites in Texas, including abandoned airfields.
"It’s ironic to me that we secure the borders of other nations better than we do our own," said Poe.
The area used to be under the watchful eye of a radar unit mounted on special blimp, hovering up to 15,000 feet above the coast. The blimp, tethered to the ground, was one of about 10 "aerostat" balloons deployed along the U.S. southern coast and border. But in 2002, the federal government mothballed the blimp in Matagorda City.
Police in Matagorda County decried the move, saying the radar deterred airborne smugglers and not having it would give smugglers a "free shot" into the country, according to a December 2001 article in the Matagorda County Advocate.
Security is a big issue, and not just for fear of drug or human smuggling. There’s a terrorism concern as well, because just a few miles from where the blimp used to be sits a nuclear power plant known as STP, the South Texas Project.
A media relations officer with U.S. Customs and Border Protection did not respond to questions from 11 News. But federal wildlife officials said they plan to someday rip up the runway on their land, making one of the airfields unusable. The other privately-owned airfield nearby remains much as it was when it was built over 60 years ago.
