The U.S. Army has purchased the balloon-like aircraft that was tested near the Ontario-Michigan border this past summer, which ignited a debate over the privacy rights of border residents.

Sierra Nevada Corp. confirmed the military bought the helium-inflated Aerostat aircraft that flew over the St. Clair River, across the border from Sarnia, Ont., for part of the summer.

A company representative confirmed in a telephone interview with CTV.ca that the balloon was sold after the Army watched a demonstration by Sierra Nevada Corp. employees in Yuma, Ariz.

"They went out there, they demonstrated and (the Army) said: 'We'll take it,'" said Bradley M. Lott, a retired U.S. Marine Corps major general who ran the testing of the Aerostat in Port Huron, Mich.

The purchase price for the unit was "a little over $1 million," Lott said.

It is Lott's understanding that the Army intends to deploy the Sarnia-tested aircraft "overseas to the Afghanistan theatre of operations," where it will be used for communications purposes.

The Aerostat was tested across the river from Sarnia, while Sierra Nevada Corp. worked out its kinks and tested different kinds of high-tech payloads, including a powerful camera that was reportedly capable of reading the name of a ship from many kilometers away.

The balloon backlash

The uproar over the Aerostat and its controversial camera raged in Sarnia well before the Heene family -- the Colorado family that recently tricked the media and the public into believing a boy was trapped in a runaway balloon -- ever made the news.

When the Aerostat began floating above the St. Clair River this past summer, Sarnia residents raised concerns that the aircraft was spying on their homes and that its presence violated their right to privacy.

They wrote letters to local newspapers, complained to politicians and about 100 people gathered to point their bare behinds at the Aerostat in a cheekily-titled Aug. 15 protest known as "Moon the Balloon."

But Sierra Nevada Corp. long insisted that the Aerostat was not spying on anybody while it was being tested.

"I could never understand the fuss with the craft itself," Lott said, when discussing the recent sale of the well-known Aerostat unit.

The aircraft was eventually damaged in a storm in early August and had to be brought down and sent for repairs.

It was then taken for a demonstration in Yuma, where the Army saw it and decided to buy it.

The future

Looking forward, the Army deal could provide jobs for the hard-hit city of Port Huron.

Lott said that if the Army buys more units -- the possibility exists that a dozen or more could eventually be purchased -- there would be training-related jobs for the Sierra Nevada Corp. in Port Huron.

An Aerostat takes four crew members to operate, each of whom require about six weeks of training to operate the aircraft, Lott said. That training would take place at the Port Huron facility.

With the 24-hour timetable of military operations, any Aerostat sold to the Army would likely have a crew compliment of up to 20 people, Lott said.

The Aerostat is made out of state, however, and there will be no manufacturing jobs that will be created in Michigan as a result of the deal.

Sarnia residents will likely not forget about the Aerostat, even if the one that flew across the river doesn't take to the sky again.

Adam Bush, who helped organize the "Moon the Balloon" protest, says he doesn't think that Lott "appreciates the type of threat this technology poses in this region."

"Billions of dollars of petrol-chemical product and equipment that could be under surveillance. Thousands of people's private lives could be invaded. Countless businesses," he told CTV.ca through Facebook.

"Fact is, if the right person has the wrong day, this technology could be devastating on many levels."

Sarnia Mayor Mike Bradley says that if the Aerostat returns to the St. Clair River in future, he will look to the Heene family for inspiration in drawing attention to the issue.

"If they put it up again, I may send a counter balloon up with a six year old Canadian kid in it. That should bring publicity to the issue again," Bradley joked in an e-mail earlier this week.