Thought I'd sent this, but it bounced. We seem to have generated
enough commotion last Fall to slow down the Navy's plan. I doubt they
are going to go away, and even if they do it is not the real issue
here. The public is not being properly informed regarding government
plans which impact local citizens.If the Navy has been planning since
2012, why did we only find out last year? Even our Department of
Natural Resources failed us. It comes down to the question, "Whose
Government is it, anyway?" And the answer is looking pretty scary.
Carl Jarvis
***
From the Tacoma News Tribune; June, 2015
A wave of letters last fall from the public persuaded the Department
of Natural Resources to rethink its implied support for a Navy
training proposal that
its staffers had followed since at least 2012, according to documents
obtained by The News Tribune.
That proposal would allow the Navy to step up its regular jet training
over the Olympic Peninsula by challenging pilots to find communication
signals sent
from trucks at different points in state and national forests. It
hinges on the Navy getting permission from the U.S. Forest Service and
the Department
of Natural Resources to drive trucks into the woods on old logging roads.
State Lands Commissioner Peter Goldmark in February wrote a letter
that effectively took three sites in state forests out of
consideration, surprising
Navy officials who thought Goldmark’s agency had indicated in the fall
of 2012 that it wouldn’t block the request.
That changed, Goldmark said, when his office received an outpouring of
phone calls, emails and letters describing fears of Olympic Peninsula
residents
that noise from Navy jets would disrupt the forest and possibly harm
wildlife. About a dozen other sites are still under consideration by
the U.S. Forest
Service.
“What surprised me in terms of the complaints I heard was that it came
from what I would call mainstream people that expressed concern about
the Navy’s
proposals,” Goldmark said. “These weren’t radicals. These were people
who had been living in the community many years. Some of them are
parents of sailors.”
Public concerns
about the so-called electronic warfare training range escalated last
fall as the U.S. Forest Service prepared to close out an environmental
impact study
that was expected to approve the Navy’s request.
It distressed residents on the Olympic Peninsula and users of the
forestland who studied reports that suggested prolonged, direct
contact with signals
sent out by the trucks could disrupt wildlife or harm people. As a
result, the Forest Service extended its public comment period for the
proposal. It is
now studying the more than 3,000 statements it received.
“There appears to be a dangerous disconnect between the military
government’s desire for war games and resource habitat needs. We would
argue that it is
critical to the long-term health of a waterway and natural resource
that we carefully balance the needs to expand military experimentation
disguised as
training,” wrote
Friends of Grays Harbor
President Arthur Grunbaum.
The likelihood of anyone being hurt by the trucks is minimal, state
and Navy officials say. A person would have to sit directly in front
of the beam for
an extended period of time to be harmed the radiation emitted from
signals, which would be difficult because they’re expected to be sent
from equipment
15 feet above ground.
Goldmark and many residents are more concerend about the possibility
that the Navy will increase flights, escalate noise or possibly
disrupt endangered
species.
“We all respect the Navy for the security they provide for the state
and the nation,” Goldmark said. “That doesn’t meant they get carte
blanche to do whatever
they want with the citizens and state agencies they need to cooperate with.”
The Navy proposal
uses sometimes broad language to describe potential environmental
impacts. It says it would send two trucks to about 15 different
locations up to 260
days a year while also using a fixed site at Pacific Beach. The
training could take place up to 12 hours a day.
When the Navy gives specific answers to direct questions, the proposal
can sound less imposing.
For example, one of Goldmark’s staffers in January 2013 asked the Navy
how often sailors would park at a particular site in a state forest.
The answer
was no more than six times a year.
Stung by criticism, Navy officials lately have been trying to assure
the public that residents won’t notice the flights or the trucks. Navy
jets already
fly almost daily over the Olympic Peninsula in airspace dedicated to
government training.
“We have operated there just about every day for 38 years,” said Capt.
Scott Farr, deputy commander of the Pacific Fleet’s electronic attack
wing at Naval
Air Station Whidbey Island.
John Mosher helped select the sites on old logging roads as
environmental program manager for Pacific Fleet Northwest. “It’ll be
an invisible change,”
he said. “What will be seen or observed by someone on the Olympic
peninsula is not going to change.”
The Navy’s electronic warfare proposal has been in the works since
2010, when the Navy adopted an environmental study that looked at ways
its operations
in the Northwest might impact wildlife.
It wants to use the signal trucks to more realistically simulate the
kind of enemy electronic communications Navy pilots find when they fly
over battlefields
in the Middle East. EA-18 Growlers based at Whidbey Island have been
searching for Islamic State signals on recent deployments to that
region.
“I consider the continuing use of that range as key to the mission,”
Navy Vice Admiral Mike Shoemaker said on a recent visit to NAS Whibdey
Island. He’s
the commander of all naval air operations.
Navy officials first signaled their intent to ask the state for
permission to use communications trucks on the ground to complement
their training over
the peninsula in September 2012, when they invited Department of
Natural Resources officials to participate in a conference call about
the plan.
The Navy also distributed a document describing how the training would
work. It invited officials to tour some of the sites, according to an
email obtained
by The News Tribune.
“Thanks for the information. A quick review has enabled me to decide I
do not need to attend in person or, via conference call,” replied a
Department of
Natural Resources supervisor. He raised some concerns about liability,
but said, “This should not be difficult to manage.”
Two years later, when the Navy proposal caught fire among residents,
DNR returned to the Navy asking for more information. DNR staffers
raised new concerns
about equipment, the strength of frequencies and access.
Still, some staffers assumed the project would get a green light.
“It seems as though the Navy has either answered (DNR questions)
previously or gave us the opportunity to deal with them earlier. I
recommend we give some
overarching guidance to them and work with them to adopt,” a DNR
environmental review manager wrote to her colleagues in October.
Public comments voicing concerns about the proposal continued to pour
inuntil Goldmark in February published his letter indicating DNR
preferred not to
allow the Navy training.
DNR officials noted that many residents appeared to celebrate his
decision in online forums and on social media outlets.
One person, though, sent an email to DNR that indicated he believed
the Navy was being treated unfairly.
“Couldn't the U.S. Navy simply purchase some Discover passes and do
it, anyway?” he asked.
Matthew Randazzo, Goldmark’s senior adviser, replied to the writer
that “passionate resistance from thousands of residents on the Olympic
Peninsula caused
the agency to take a hard look at the proposal.
This time, DNR leaders concluded they had “serious concerns” about how
increased jet noise might impact habitat for endangered species.
