NC Leaders Propose 6 Alternative OLF Sites to Navy
September 19, 2007
The US Navy put on hold the proposed OLF site in Washington County after a loud oppositional outcry about the site. The proposed Washington county site would put the landing strip right in the heart of the Pocosin National Wildlife Refuge and threaten important winter waterfowl habitat.
Two of the new alternative sites are centered in rural Gates County, and two are in Camden County in northeastern North Carolina near the Virginia border. Some aircraft noise could affect neighboring counties such as Currituck and Hertford.
The northeastern sites are 20 to 50 miles from Naval Air Station Oceana in Virginia Beach, Va., the base for most of the squadrons of Super Hornet fighter jets that would use the airfield.
Also on the list are two sites in southeastern North Carolina. One site is in the Angola Bay game lands on the border of Duplin and Pender counties. The other is the Hofmann Forest, a research forest in Jones and Onslow counties.
Environmental groups said they wanted to study the sites in more detail before endorsing any. But they did not express the immediate opposition that erupted over the Washington County site.
The secretary of the Navy is reviewing an analysis of the six new North Carolina sites and 10 others offered by Virginia. The Navy is expected to decide by mid-November whether to undertake in-depth environmental reviews of any of them.
All six of these sites were on the original list that the Navy looked at but all were initially ruled out but maybe this time things will be different.
Environmental groups successfully challenged in court the Navy’s selection of the site near the national wildlife refuge. They came away from Tuesday’s meeting encouraged by a tone of cooperation.
I hope they are right but somehow I think if the sites were rejected once by the Navy there is little hope that they’ll suddenly be acceptable. It will also be interesting to see if any sites will be acceptable to many of the environmental groups.
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