MOULTRIE, Ga. — With one eye on safety concerns and the other on economic development, the Moultrie City Council and Colquitt County Board of Commissioners have drafted resolutions opposing a proposal by the U.S. Air Force.

The Air Force — specifically Moody Air Force Base near Valdosta — has an agreement that lets it train pilots in the sky over Moultrie, especially in the area of Spence Field. The pilots don’t currently train there, but the base can activate that training area at any time, according to Mike Boyd of the Moultrie-Colquitt County Airport Authority.

Currently the Military Operations Area — or MOA — starts at 8,000 feet up, Boyd told the Colquitt County Commission on Tuesday. The MOA also has a maximum altitude, but Boyd didn’t know what it was. When the base activates the MOA, military pilots operate between those altitudes and all civilian pilots must stay either below the bottom or above the top.

The Air Force has proposed lowering the bottom of the MOA to 1,000 feet, Boyd said. That would mean aircraft coming into Moultrie Municipal Airport would have to drop below 1,000 feet several miles before approaching the airport.

“It puts the passengers and the pilots and the aircraft in danger,” he said.

First, the lower altitude makes a collision between an airplane and a bird more likely, he said, but more important, it gives the pilot very little time to react to any kind of incident.

One big impact would be on Sanderson Farms’ corporate jet, Moultrie City Councilman Cecil Barber said.

“The biggest thing is economic development,” Barber said. “Sanderson Farms comes in two or three times a day in their jet. What (the Air Force proposal) means is they have to get down to 4,000 feet 60 miles out before they can get to the airport, which is ridiculous. As far as getting future development here, if they find that out, that’s going to be a dealbreaker.”

Boyd said area plantations bring in many hunters during the hunting season, and a lot of them come and go by way of the Moultrie airport.

“This affects Sunbelt Expo pretty good too because of increased traffic coming to Spence,” he said.

The Air Force proposal actually involves about a dozen other airports across South Georgia, from Thomasville to Cordele, Boyd said.

Moultrie City Manager Pete Dillard said the City of Douglas in Coffee County was the first to pass a resolution opposing the Air Force proposal. Both the Moultrie Council and the Colquitt County Commission approved similar resolutions Tuesday, and the Moultrie-Colquitt County Development Authority is gathering information for its own resolution.

Dillard said all resolutions would go to the appropriate state legislators to take the concerns further.

“This gives them the ammunition they need to tell the Air Force ‘You don’t need to do this,’” said Dillard.

Boyd told county commissioners he expects to counter the Air Force plan by proposing a 6,000-foot minimum — 2,000 feet lower than what they have now but still more than a mile up — in hopes of negotiating a mutually acceptable limit.

He said he didn’t understand why the Air Force thinks it needs its operations area to be so low over a populated area when the base has an operations area over the Okefenokee Swamp and its own bombing range in north Florida.