Prince George opposes plans for Navy field at 3 Va. sites - Wednesday, Apr 23, 2008
By LUZ LAZO
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITERPRINCE GEORGE -- The county now officially opposes the Navy's plans to build a practice landing field for its Virginia Beach-based jets at any of three proposed sites in Virginia.
The Prince George Board of Supervisors last night unanimously approved a resolution opposing the Navy's plans that could place the outlying landing field in Surry, Sussex or Southampton County.
Board members and county administration officials also encouraged residents to attend Navy-sponsored public hearings on the matter Tuesday.
The Navy is considering the three sites in Virginia and two in North Carolina for a practice field for F/A-18 Hornet and Super Hornet jets from Oceana Naval Air Station in Virginia Beach.
Navy officials have been looking for years for a lightly populated area that would be suitable for a practice field.
Residents and local officials have expressed concern over the impact the noisy and repetitious maneuvers will have in their communities. The Surry site is near the Prince George line, and the noise would be heard in a big portion of the county, said County Administrator Brenda G. Garton.
Guy Sotomayor, a Prince George resident who lives about 2 miles from the Sussex site, said the noise would disturb residents and animals as well.
"If anyone has ever been near a landing field, it is miserably noisy," Sotomayor said.
Board member Alan R. Carmichael said the board has to do everything it can to prevent the project from moving forward in the area.
"Our citizens are against it, and we will support them," Carmichael said. "We would like to deter any inconvenience to our residents. It's in Surry County, but it can ultimately affect us."
Several county officials went to Washington this month to let area legislators know about their opposition to the Navy proposal.
Board member Jerry J. Skalsky last night urged residents to attend a hearing the Navy will hold Tuesday from 4 to 9 p.m. at J.E.J. Moore Middle School in Disputanta. Another meeting will be held the same day and time at Sussex Central High School.
The resolution approved last night will be sent to legislators and Navy officials.
Contact Luz Lazo at (804) 649-6058 or llazo@timesdispatch.com.
Reader Reaction
Posted April 23, 2008 @ 11:34 AM by Eleazar
It's ironic that on another page is the celebratory announcement that the Blue Angels will fly over the start of the upcoming NASCAR race. Anonymous 0839, your personal attack on "soldier" is despicable and demonstrates that it is you who is delusional. History has proven that in order to maintain peace, nations, especially those of good will, must be prepared to defend themselves. Peace comes not from singing Kumbaya, but from a establishing and maintaining military strength and readiness.Posted April 23, 2008 @ 11:12 AM by Anonymous
Dirt, it is sad that your expectation of violence is shared by so many. The news article was about the "square foot" that the neighbors stood on and so they had a right to resist the landing strip. Peace can be obtained when the US and other countries check their egos, admits their historical wrongs and stop policies that entice zealots into reciprocal acts of terrorism. They feel they are as justified as the US in their violent actions. Someone has to take the first step to break this cyclePosted April 23, 2008 @ 11:09 AM by okboston
This is not about supporting the military. The Navy has places to practice landing and has other locations they can move to in Florida and Texas. THis is about keeping jobs (money) in the Virginia Beach area while pushing all the unpleasent activites off on neighboring areas with no reward of any type going to the area that has the OLF. I have an idea, lets do a land swap for tax purposes. Virginia Beach gets the OLF and the locality with the OLF gets the 30,000 acreas around Oceana.Posted April 23, 2008 @ 09:40 AM by DIRTNAP450
Wow, Anonymous, your truly delusional. Do you actually think that it this day Peace is attainable? Maybe today in the square foot that your standing in, maybe. But what are you going to do when its your head that is about to be cut off or when your family is enslaved? Well i dont have any "pie-eyed" optimism that the people of the world will just "get along nicely" once they learn that you want peace... HAHAHAH or better yet. once they get a starbucks... you are only fooling yourself.Posted April 23, 2008 @ 08:54 AM by military officer's widow
We support our military...right????? They protect us and provide us our freedoms (many make the utimate sacrifice)...so, let them practice their take-offs and landings without worrying about who's backyard they are in! Navy...have you tried Fort A.P. Hill up in Caroine County....they have 77,000 acres of land...they might be receptive to the idea!Posted April 23, 2008 @ 08:39 AM by Anonymous
Soldier, it is unfortunate that your ability to think clearly and rationally was severely diluted with all that fine training that the military poured into your compromised brain. Those of us not so disolved, can still consider what it would be like to live in a world of peace and serenity, and not spend every waking second of our lives preparing for the next brawl. If you don't understand any of this (and I am sure you won't) have one of your commanding officers explain it to you.Posted April 23, 2008 @ 05:50 AM by soldier
always amazed to see the opposition to keeping our military combat ready. Not only is the clamor coming from the "not in my back yard" folks but they add "not in our neighbors back yard." Pray tell where must they put the landing strip? why let's spend mega-billions and build it in the Atlantic ocean. I am sure the opposition would consent to a tax raise to pay for it. Fat chance.......
Southside residents will fight Navy plan to build jet field - Thursday, Apr 03, 2008
Group meets on how to keep practice field out of areaBy BILL GEROUX
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITERCOURTLAND -- Nearly 700 residents of rural Southside Virginia turned out last night to plan a counterattack against a Navy proposal to build a practice field for its noisy jets.
The organizer of the group, Tony Clark, read the biblical story of David and Goliath to the crowd and predicted a similar upset victory against the Navy.
Barry Steinberg, a Washington lawyer hired by the counties of Sussex, Surry and Southampton, vowed to question all aspects of the Navy's plan, from the potential effect of jet noise on livestock to the question of whether an airfield would be finished before a new generation of Navy jets renders it obsolete.
Outside the crowded Southampton High School auditorium, members of the group sold T-shirts, stickers, yard signs and ball caps with messages of opposition to a landing field. Several county supervisors and state legislators, and a representative of Rep. J. Randy Forbes, R-4th, attended to show support for the group.
An outlying landing field would bring few jobs or tax dollars to its host locality, only the roar of jets day and night. It would consist mainly of an airstrip, control tower and fire station in the midst of 30,000 vacant acres.
The Navy is considering five sites, including two that straddle the line between Sussex and Southampton; one in Surry near the Prince George County line; and two in North Carolina. The Navy is preparing to begin a detailed environmental study of the sites and will hold public hearings in each county.
The Navy has tried since the late 1990s to find a place for the practice airfield in a lightly populated area where F/A-18 Hornet and Super Hornet jets from Oceana Naval Air Station in Virginia Beach could practice noisy, repetitious, low-altitude landing drills while disturbing as few people as possible.
The drills currently take place at Oceana and at nearby Fentress Naval Auxiliary Landing Field in Chesapeake. Both fields have been encroached upon by the suburbs in recent years. Residents routinely complain about jet noise; the Navy complains the suburban sprawl has limited the fields' effectiveness for pilot training.
Suburban encroachment on Oceana prompted the 2005 military base-closing commission to threaten to move Oceana's 150 jets and the accompanying 14,000 jobs out of Virginia Beach. That has not happened. But state officials say helping the Navy find a spot for an outlying field can relieve the pressure and protect the future of Oceana, a pillar of the local economy.
The Navy says a new outlying field is critical for training its pilots in the difficult skill of landing on the decks of aircraft carriers. Oceana is the Navy's main East Coast jet base, and its jet squadrons routinely deploy on carriers around the world.
In 2001, the Navy set out to build the outlying field in rural Washington County, N.C. But farmers and environmental groups stalled the project with lawsuits and then slowly rallied enough support in Congress to force the Navy to look elsewhere.
In June, the Navy asked the governors of Virginia and North Carolina to help find a place for the outlying field. Gov. Timothy M. Kaine's office nominated 10 potential sites in rural eastern Virginia. Boards of supervisors in each county quickly voted to ask the Navy to look elsewhere. In the fall, the Navy narrowed the choices to the three in Virginia and two in North Carolina.
Clark, chairman of the group Virginians Against the Outlying Landing Field, said the Navy has tried to stress the potential economic benefits of the field, including construction costs and more than 50 full-time jobs.
But those benefits pale against the potential noise and disruption of jets roaring across the Southside skies, Clark said. He said many in the potentially affected farm communities think they are being asked to forfeit their rural solitude to fix a problem caused by runaway development in Virginia Beach and Chesapeake.
Contact Bill Geroux at (757) 498-2820 or bgeroux@timesdispatch.com.
Letters To The Editor; Don't Send Any More Pollution to Dory - Tuesday, Feb 12, 2008
Editor, Times-Dispatch:
How much contamination can the community of Dory withstand? First it was Smithfield-Carroll's Foods pollution our water supply from hog operations forced upon us in the late 1980s. And now the Department of Defense wants to take over and pollute the air space and land in Dory with an Outlying Landing Field (OLF) for the Navy. We cannot survive in this rural community with the continuing bombardment on our natural resources.
Will my daughter and her family have somewhere to live if Dory is chosen as the landing site? Will I even have the farmland that has been in the Pond family since 1742? Unfortunately, the federal, state, and local governments have deemed Dory a piece of disposable property.
We count -- we love our way of life and that is why we have chosen to live in the country and maintain property that has been in our family for over 200 years. Why are our rural communities to suffer for the government blunders made by the greedy officials who allowed housing to grow up around the existing landing site at Virginia Beach? The Navy should keep its jets at the beach or move the landing strip to Fort Pickett, where there is an existing facility that can be upgraded to accommodate the new OLF.
Where is the resolve that was made to the citizens of these sites by Gov. Tim Kaine and his officials -- that no community would be forced to accept this airfield? We are being penalized for not having a large voting population that directly affects elected officials. Virginia, please stop using Dory as the dumping ground for what politicians and officials do not want in their own backyards.
Jack Pond. Sedley. . . .
Editor, Times-Dispatch: I am blessed to live on land where I was born and raised. Try to imagine what it is like to raise your children on land that was homesteaded by your great-great grandfather. Imagine what it is like to live on land that you watched your father and your grandfather till and toil over for years.
Envision living on land that you and your husband actually hand-cleared of stumps, roots, and debris so that you could build your home and start your life together. It is not just the peace, tranquility, and freedom of living in a rural area that I covet; I love this particular land because of my heritage and my ancestry. I hope people can now understand why the possible location of the Navy's Outlying Landing Field (OLF) on the Mason tract in Sussex and Southampton counties is traumatizing real people.
Picture my parents and the needless stress and strain this is putting them through. My dad, a WWII veteran, now at the age of 87, has to fight a war just to save his home. Where is the American dream? My mother has lived on this land for virtually all of her 82 years. How do we explain to her that she may have to move and/or have what should be her golden years turned into turmoil and despair?
Would anyone like to see their parents suffer like this? I humbly ask for support in opposing the location of the OLF in Southside Virginia.
Sharon B. Mattox.
Jarratt.
NIABYs - Wednesday, Feb 06, 2008
Hedged in by development in Virginia Beach, the U.S. Navy has been looking for places where its pilots can practice touch-and-go landings in circumstances similar to those on an aircraft carrier.For a while it had its eye on Washington County, N.C. But that prospect fell through because of local opposition and environmental concerns. The proposed site of the outlying landing field, or OLF, was too close to a wildlife refuge.
Now the Navy is looking at three potential sites in Virginia -- in Surry, Sussex, and Southampton -- as well as two others in North Carolina. Virginians near the possible OLF locations are not pleased by the prospect of jet noise at all hours -- with little or no benefit in the form of jobs or other economic development.
In short, Navy officials face a NIABY attitude -- Not In Anybody's Backyard. Apparently they are welcome to put the OLF anywhere they like, so long as the airstrip is nowhere near (a) densely populated areas, (b) sparsely populated areas, or (c) wildlife-populated areas.
Good luck to'em.
Letters to the Editor; All-Powerful Navy Takes Whatever It Wants - Sunday, Oct 07, 2007
Editor, Times-Dispatch:
King and Queen County is one of a number of rural sites proposed for an outlying landing field (OLF) for Navy jets. I live in King and Queen.
We U.S. citizens value our military. Many fear however, our military's unbridled, monolithic power particularly in its alignment with industry. We fear what our Republican president, Dwight D. Eisenhower warned to be wary of -- the military-industrial complex. There is hardly a more powerful institution in the world today. It is a fearful thing to be in its way. It can devour the very citizens it serves.
The Navy is part of this power -- power derived from the people and their taxes. It has hundreds of billions of dollars to spend, and with its unparalleled power it can take whatever it wants, even the homes of the citizens from whom it derives its wealth.
The Navy is so powerful and rich it does not have to search and scratch for strategic options to its objectives. It does not have to think outside the box. It can take the easy way and just say, "We want your land," and that's it.
Certainly, there are many options besides new OLFs for pilots to learn to land their eardrum-shattering jets: computerized landing schedules using existing landing fields; floating decks in bays, gulfs, and oceans; deserts; virtual landing exercises; and a combination of the above. There are many options the Navy has other than confiscating the property of its citizens.
Clement A. Sydnor III. King and Queen.
Sussex fearful of possible arrival of Navy landing field - Monday, Jan 28, 2008
By MICHAEL PHILLIPS TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITERSUSSEX -- Tiffany Poole left Virginia Beach to escape the constant noise. Now it may follow her to Wakefield.
"Honestly, I moved out here to get away from all that," she said.
Along with other residents, Poole is unhappy about the potential construction of a practice landing field for Navy jets in Sussex County. The Navy said last week that it will study five sites, including three in Southside Virginia and two in northern North Carolina.
The landing field would simulate the conditions on an aircraft carrier, creating a practice area for jets taking off from the Oceana Naval Air Station in Virginia Beach and Cherry Point Marine Corps Air Station in Havelock, N.C.
The landing field likely would not generate jobs for the area, but residents fear a constant barrage of noise from low-flying aircraft.
"At least the commercial airplanes stop at 11 p.m.," Poole said. "Those Navy jets don't."
In Waverly, resident Emma Parker said the reaction has been just as strong.
"I haven't heard a single person say they're for it," she said. "I don't think they should put it near the neighborhoods -- it would create too much noise."
The Navy will spend the next 24 to 30 months evaluating the five proposed sites. All three Virginia communities under consideration already have expressed disapproval.
Gary Rhodes is another Wakefield resident who moved from Virginia Beach. Rhodes, who lived just blocks from Oceana while he was there, described the effect that jet planes have on nearby houses.
"When they come through, it just shakes the whole foundation of the house," he said. "It's way worse than the semi-trucks that come through here on [U.S.] 460."
The Virginia sites under consideration include one in Surry County and two straddling the border of Sussex and Southampton counties. The Navy has been searching for a site since 2001, but its initial choice in Washington County, N.C., was rejected because it is near a wildlife refuge.
If the Navy picks a Sussex site, it could alter the makeup of nearby towns in different ways. Poole, who works at the Wakefield Inn, said she would consider moving. If others followed, it could drastically change the town, which has about 1,000 residents.
Sussex County resident Burt Reid said that if the site is picked over the county's objections, there probably isn't much residents can do.
"The military is going to do what it wants to do," he said.
Contact Michael Phillips at mphillips@timesdispatch.com.
Southside could be site of Navy jet landing strip - Wednesday, Jan 23, 2008
Three sites in rural Southside Virginia are in the running as the Navy prepares to start over in its search for a site for a practice landing field for its noisy Virginia Beach-based jets.
The Navy has abandoned its four-year campaign to build the practice field in remote Washington County, N.C., where opposition has been intense.
The need: The field would serve as a training ground where pilots of F/A-18 Hornet and Super Hornet jets from Oceana Naval Air Station in Virginia Beach and Cherry Point Marine Corps Air Station in Havelock, N.C., would simulate landing on aircraft carriers. Most of that training now takes place near Oceana, where it generates constant complaints from the crowded suburbs of Virginia Beach and Chesapeake.
The sites: The Navy will focus on five possible sites. Three are in Virginia: the Cabin Point area of Surry County and two straddling the border of Sussex and Southampton counties. The two North Carolina sites are in Gates County and along the border of Currituck and Camden counties.
The selection: The Navy will spend the next 24 to 30 months examining the potential environmental impact of a landing field on all five sites, and then choose one.
The hearings: The evaluation process will include a series of public hearings, which are likely to be heated. The boards of supervisors in all the Virginia sites are on record as not wanting the airfield. -- Bill Geroux -RD>
Navy jet site list targets 3 in Va. - Wednesday, Jan 23, 2008
Landing strip could go to areas in Southside despite local objections
By BILL GEROUX
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITERThree sites in rural Southside Virginia are in the running as the Navy prepares to start over in its search for a site for a practice landing field for its noisy Virginia Beach-based jets.
Navy Secretary Donald C. Winter announced yesterday that the Navy has abandoned its four-year campaign to build the practice field in remote Washington County, N.C., where opposition has been intense. The Navy will focus instead on five potential sites in Virginia and North Carolina, which were nominated last year by the governors of the respective states.
The three Virginia sites include one in the Cabin Point area of Surry County and two straddling the border of Sussex and Southampton counties. The two North Carolina sites are in Gates County and along the border of Currituck and Camden counties.
Lt. Cmdr. Cindy Moore, a Navy spokeswoman in Washington, said the Navy will spend the next 24 to 30 months examining the potential environmental impact of a landing field on all five sites, and then choose one. The evaluation process will include a series of public hearings, which are likely to be heated. The boards of supervisors in all the Virginia sites are on record as not wanting the airfield.
"Surry County still does not want it," Surry County Administrator Tyrone Franklin said yesterday. "We don't think that any economic benefits from it would be worth the disruption to our way of life."
The landing field would provide few jobs or other benefits to its host community. The field would serve as a training ground where pilots of F/A-18 Hornet and Super Hornet jets from Oceana Naval Air Station in Virginia Beach and Cherry Point Marine Corps Air Station in Havelock, N.C., would simulate landing on aircraft carriers. Most of that training now takes place near Oceana, where it generates constant complaints from the crowded suburbs of Virginia Beach and Chesapeake.
The Navy says the encroaching suburbs and the ambient light they produce have made it difficult for jet pilots to simulate carrier landings, particularly night landings. In 2001 the Navy set out to find a flat, lightly populated site for a practice field close to Oceana and Cherry Point, and two years later it chose one in Washington County, N.C., adjacent to the Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge, where tens of thousands of migratory birds spend the winters. But lawsuits from environmental groups stalled the project, and local residents steadily built support in Congress to fight the plan.
Last summer, the Navy asked Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine and North Carolina Gov. Michael Easley to suggest alternate sites. Kaine's office offered 10 choices in the counties of Sussex, Surry, Southampton, Greensville and King and Queen. U.S. Sen. John Warner, R-Va., also had asked the Navy to consider Fort Pickett near Blackstone. It was from those choices that the Navy yesterday selected the three Virginia finalists.
Yesterday, Warner and Sen. James Webb, D-Va. -- both Navy veterans -- expressed support for the Navy's efforts to build the field to help its pilots hone their carrier-landing skills.
Warner called for a "transparent and open" selection process. Webb pointed out that the Navy has pledged to work to minimize the airfield's negative impacts and to maximize its economic benefits to whichever locality is chosen.
Moore said there is currently no front-runner among the five sites.
Navy officials have said the Sussex and Surry sites contain large tracts of uninhabited timberland whose owners have expressed interest in selling the land to the Department of Defense.
In a prepared statement yesterday, Kaine said he was committed to helping the Navy find a site for a landing field. Virginia nearly lost Oceana's more than 150 jets and 14,000 jobs in the 2005 round of military base-closings because of Navy complaints about suburban encroachment at Oceana. But the governor also said, "I recognize that this is an issue that causes great concern among many in the potentially affected localities." Kaine promised the evaluation process would be "deliberative and open," and that he would look for ways to sweeten the deal for whatever locality is chosen for the airfield.
The outlying landing field, or OLF in Navy jargon, would consist of little more than an airstrip, a tower and a fire station in the midst of 30,000 acres. It would bring no tax revenue -- in fact it would remove the land from the county tax rolls -- and roughly 52 jobs, including firefighters, security guards and groundskeepers.
Contact Bill Geroux at (757) 498-2820 or bgeroux@timesdispatch.com.
Letters To The Editor; Move Navy Field To the Desert - Friday, Sep 21, 2007
Editor, Times-Dispatch:Your editorial, "Sound of Freedom," concludes: "Find the best place to put the OLF. End of story." Several years ago, I assume the Navy tried to do what was best for its pilots when they proposed closing Oceana and moving pilot training elsewhere. You contend, "The loss of Oceana would have been a major [economic] blow," and this motivated Virginia to offer rural sites for the OLF.
So the sound of money trumps the sound of freedom?
Apparently, the state did what was in the best interest of the state, not the pilots. Then, you make outrageous statements against local residents who oppose the OLF site because it won't bring jobs or money -- only jet noise. These "rural folk" prefer a "bucolic" lifestyle over national defense. You ask if the "sound of jetliners crashing into office towers" is worse than jet fighters.
These "rural folk" belong to families who have served our country since the early 1800s. They know a great deal about the sound of freedom. Maybe you should ask them about their freedom before the government takes their land away.
The best place for an outlying landing field is far away from developed communities. It is a place where people's lives are not disturbed, nature not compromised, historical lands not denigrated -- a place like the desert. I'll bet the Navy owns a place like that. It should move there. End of story.
Gary Christian. Ashburn.
Letters To The Editor; Don't Penalize Counties For Beach's Mistakes - Thursday, Sep 20, 2007
Editor, Times-Dispatch:
Your "Sound of Freedom" editorial essentially branded opponents of a proposed remote landing field in rural Virginia as unpatriotic, while giving the Virginia Beach area a pass. One can oppose an outlying landing field (OLF) in one's backyard and still be a red-blooded American.
The absolute best place for pilots at Naval Air Station Oceana to practice touch-and-go landings is where they have practiced for decades -- the Virginia Beach area. NAS Oceana is home of the East Coast's master jet base.
Yes, we are "rural folk." We live in quiet counties like Nottoway, Lunenburg, Dinwiddie, and Brunswick. Our communities are trying to properly plan their growth and learn from the mismanagement and lack of vision evident in other parts of the commonwealth.
Virginia Beach officials were short-sighted and allowed developers to encroach upon NAS Oceana. Virginia Beach is where this OLF problem originated, and Virginia Beach is where it should be resolved. Encroachment issues at Oceana and Chesapeake are a national tragedy and a disgrace. Shame on Beach area officials for failing to safeguard the continued operation and expansion of a vital military institution so key to our nation's security and for failing to ensure the future of their area's biggest economic asset. The Beach area -- with assistance from state and federal officials -- is now looking to keep its 14,000 jobs at Oceana by dumping the noise on rural Virginia.
Shame on you for using the attack on the Twin Towers as rationale to support one region's efforts that would destroy another region's quality of life. The attacks on 9/11 could have been prevented -- not by a better remote landing field, but by getting a better idea of who's in this great country and why. But guess what? The federal government is mishandling that, too.
Billy Coleburn, Mayor, Town of Blackstone.
Blackstone.# Editor's note:
The Times-Dispatch has not given Virginia Beach "a pass." In previous editorials about Oceana and Virginia Beach, this newspaper has: (1) said "encroaching development ranks high among the reasons Oceana now faces an uncertain future"; (2) insisted that "national interests, not local ones, ought to determine Oceana's fate"; (3) noted that the Base Realignment and Closure Commission "hammered Virginia Beach for allowing development to encroach upon Oceana, but gave the city a final chance to 'clean up the mess' it had created"; and (4) criticized Beach residents who complain about jet noise, saying that "BRAC's responsibility is reorganizing military assets to improve the defense of the nation. Everything else should remain a distant secondary, if not tertiary, concern."
CORRESPONDENT OF THE DAY; OLF in Sussex Would Ruin Much - Tuesday, Sep 18, 2007
Editor, Times-Dispatch:After reading your sanctimonious editorial, "Sound of Freedom," regarding outlying landing fields (OLFs), I simply had to respond.
There is no question that our naval aviators need and deserve our support. However, people who don't live in one of the proposed OLF sites can effortlessly offer their wholehearted support because they have no fear of any negative consequences to them personally.
You focused on Sussex, with two proposed OLF sites. I am a lifelong citizen of Sussex. In the past Sussex has accepted many undesirable industries that other localities vetoed, including prisons and landfills. Quite simply, it is not right to continue to expect poorer localities such as Sussex to accept industries no one else in the state wants!
Sussex has a high rate of school dropouts, teen pregnancies, and citizens living in poverty. Its schools have a dismal SOL pass record. The county desperately needs industries that will improve living conditions, not bring them down further.
Despite the limited opportunities, I have chosen to remain in Sussex due to strong family ties and the quiet, pastoral surroundings. If the southwestern Sussex site is adopted for the OLF, I and many other county citizens will lose the positive aspects that have kept us here. The quiet will be shattered, day and night, by numerous touch-and-go landings. My parents' home, the homes of both of my sisters, the farmland passed down through several generations of my mother's side of the family, and our 130-year-old family cemetery will all be condemned. Our peaceful little country church will be in the buffer zone.
My father is a veteran of World War II. He volunteered to serve in the Navy and worked as a mechanic on naval aircraft. I tell you this so that you will know there is no question regarding his patriotism and his support of our Navy. Ironically now, at the age of 86 and having survived not only a World War but also cancer, he and my mother are faced with the possible loss of the land where they have lived during more than 57 years of marriage.
So, begging your pardon: Don't tell me it's as simple as finding the best location and putting the OLF there.
Terri Edwards Branch. Waverly.
Sound of Freedom - Friday, Sep 07, 2007
A couple of years ago the Commonwealth of Virginia had the equivalent of a mild heart attack -- the sort of event that scares you and concentrates the mind on the need to change your ways -- when the Navy threatened to pull Oceana Naval Air Station out of Virginia Beach. Oceana plays a crucial role not only in national defense, but also in the economy of Hampton Roads -- indeed, the entire state. The loss of Oceana would have been a major blow.
So when the Navy said it needed some potential sites for an airstrip where pilots from Oceana could practice touch-and-gos that simulate carrier landings, Virginia officials found several that met the principal criteria: rural areas with flat topography.
Local officials promptly blew raspberries. Several localities have signified their objection even to being mentioned as possible sites. Such an airstrip, called an outlying landing field (OLF), doesn't bring many jobs or much money. But it does bring a lot of jet noise, which rural folk understandably don't take kindly to.
On the other hand, most Americans were pretty glad to hear military jets screaming through the skies on 9/11. On that day it was poignantly easy to understand why some residents of Virginia Beach call jet noise "the sound of freedom."
This newspaper has been an outspoken critic of federal heavy-handedness and the sometimes outrageous abuse of eminent domain for economic development. But pilots need practice. National defense ranks at the top of the list of fundamental national responsibilities, as well as the list of justifiable reasons for exercising the power of condemnation. If that's what it takes to find a suitable location for an OLF, so be it.
Jet noise obnoxiously disturbs the bucolic peace of the countryside, no doubt about that. But it's not half so disruptive as the sound of jetliners slamming into office towers or the Pentagon -- or the White House. Find the best location and put the OLF there. End of story.
No place to land - Tuesday, Sep 04, 2007
Va. communities don't want Navy's proposed practice field, jet noise By BILL GEROUX TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITERSUSSEX Ever hungry for jobs and tax dollars, rural Sussex County embraces development projects other communities reject. Sussex is home to corporate hog farms, two state prisons and Virginia's largest landfill.
But Sussex wants no part of the latest such project: a Navy airfield where F/A-18 Super Hornet jets from Virginia Beach would thunder in and out to simulate landing on aircraft carriers.
The outlying landing field would consist of little more than an airstrip, a tower and a fire station in the midst of 30,000 acres. It would bring few jobs and no tax revenue, just a steady diet of jets, day and night.
"We just couldn't see any advantage to having this in our community," said Rufus Tyler Sr., chairman of the Sussex Board of Supervisors, which voted unanimously last month to ask that the Navy look elsewhere.
The Navy has been looking, since 2001. Rear Adm. David O. Anderson, vice commander of the Fleet Forces Command in Norfolk, said the Navy "has been taking a political beating" for its efforts to build the airfield in Washington County, N.C. In June, he said, the Navy approached the governors of Virginia and North Carolina to help find a spot for the field.
Gov. Timothy M. Kaine's office identified 10 potential sites in the rural eastern Virginia counties of Sussex, Surry, Southampton, Greensville and King and Queen. Within three weeks, the boards of supervisors in all five counties passed unanimous resolutions asking for their respective sites to be taken off the list.
Southampton's supervisors were in such a hurry to vote they called a special meeting.
"We wanted to be clear that if the Navy is looking for the path of least resistance, it does not run through Southampton County," said county Administrator Mike Johnson. He said the meeting attracted more than 600 people, "the largest crowd for a local issue I've seen in 22 years of local government."
King and Queen Supervisor Doris H. Morris said opposition to the landing field among local residents was overwhelming.
But all 10 Virginia sites are still on the list, as is Fort Pickett near Blackstone, which U.S. Sen. John W. Warner, R-Va., asked the Navy to reconsider after rejecting it the first time around. The Dinwiddie and Nottoway county boards of supervisors and Blackstone Town Council have registered their opposition to placing the landing field at Fort Pickett.
The list includes at least five sites in North Carolina, including the one in Washington County, which the Navy has not given up on.
The Navy expects to trim the list by Sept. 15.
Mark Anthony, who manages the airfield project for the Navy, said it may be possible to find an isolated site where the jets would intrude on few people. Some of the Virginia sites include large swaths of privately held timberland whose owners have been in contact with the Navy, he said.
But people living near the proposed Virginia sites are not all so optimistic. Some are angry at the state for offering up their property to potential seizure by the Navy, without first asking or even notifying them.
"I voted for Governor Kaine, but I'll never vote for him for anything again," said Nancy Cramer of Sussex, whose home stands on one of the sites. "I wanted to retire in my house, but I just have the feeling the Navy is going to end up taking it."
The Navy, Anderson said, needs an outlying landing field because it is deploying more carrier-based jet squadrons on more irregular rotations than a decade ago. A new field would serve eight squadrons of Super Hornets based at Oceana Naval Air Station and two based at Cherry Point Marine Corps Air Station near Havelock, N.C.
Landing a jet on the flight deck of an aircraft carrier, particularly at night, is considered one of the most difficult jobs in the Navy. A video of a night carrier landing appears on the state preparedness office Web site, http://www.ocp.virginia.gov/.
A key pre-deployment training drill for pilots is the "touch and go," which involves touching down the plane momentarily on an airfield painted to resemble a flight deck, then taking off to circle for the next touch. That noisy, day-and-night exercise is what the Navy wants to conduct at an outlying landing field.
Pilots from Oceana practice touch-and-go landings at Fentress Auxiliary Landing Field in nearby Chesapeake, generating a regular stream of noise complaints from the suburbs. Anderson said Fentress is too small to train all the squadrons preparing for deployment.
In addition, he said, ambient light from Virginia Beach and Chesapeake makes the skies over Oceana and Fentress too bright at night for aviators to simulate night carrier landings at sea. Some sites on the list in Virginia and North Carolina are so lightly populated that the night skies are as pitch-black as in the middle of the ocean.
Virginia got a scare in 2005 when the military base-closing commission threatened to move Oceana's jet squadrons and the accompanying 14,000 jobs out of Virginia Beach because of encroachment of the runways by the suburbs. The threat fizzled, but state officials resolved afterward to work more closely with the Navy to protect the future of Oceana and other bases, said Steve Mondul, deputy assistant to the governor in the state Office of Commonwealth Preparedness.
When the Navy asked for help with the outlying landing field, Mondul said, the state ran a computer program to identify sites in eastern Virginia that fit the criteria, including low population density and flat topography. The computer chose the sites and the state passed them on to the Navy, he said.
Kaine "is not going to ram this down some potential location's throat that doesn't want it," Mondul said. But he said the final word would not be the boards of supervisors "passing resolutions in large crowded rooms . . . in an election year."
Officials in several of the Virginia counties said they were not sure what to expect. "We're real concerned about this," said Surry County Administrator Tyrone Franklin.
Doris Morris (no relation to the King and Queen supervisor), a member of the residents group that has stalled the landing field in Washington County, said she has received calls for advice from people in Virginia. Her advice was not to rely on the government process but to start marshaling political support in Congress.
She said Virginia Beach created the demand for the field by allowing its suburbs to spread out of control. She said no quiet, rural county in Virginia or North Carolina should have to pay for it.
Contact Bill Geroux at (757) 625-1358 or wgeroux@timesdispatch.com.