Fear of the unknown isn’t anything new, and it seems there’s a certain degree of misunderstanding surrounding the Navy’s plans to use electromagnetic transmitters on the Olympic Peninsula.
The Navy, as a government entity, isn’t great with communicating with the public these days, and it is encountering significant resistance to its plans for transmitters, which would aid in training of EA-18G Growler fliers.
So far, more than 3,300 people have said they oppose the Navy’s expanded training plans. The flood of public comments pushed back the Navy’s target date for the $11.5-million expansion of electronic-warfare range activities from September to early 2016.
State Commissioner of Public Lands Peter Goldmark has made no bones about the fact he doesn’t like the Navy’s training plans either.
“Though we have not received a formal land use or lease application for this project, we feel that we are adequately informed to decide that we would not be interested in participating in this training exercise,” Goldmark said in a letter sent to Rear Adm. Jeffrey Ruth, commander of Navy Region Northwest.
The Navy, however, seems to have a pretty well reasoned case showing that its proposed electronic warfare training on the Olympic Peninsula poses no threat to the environment or well-being of humans and wildlife.
The training is also nothing new — Growlers already fly over the peninsula. The Navy’s plan doesn’t change where aircraft would fly, their altitude, and there’s no anticipated increase in aircraft noise.
There would be a projected 10 percent increase in the number of flights from the average of about 1,250 a year over the past two years. That’s about 125 additional flights.
They Navy says it wants to mount emitters on Ford F-550 trucks that would have antennas and an operations cab in the back. The emitters would put out frequencies equivalent to those of WiFi devices and cordless phones. The trucks would be parked in remote areas on U.S. Forest Service logging roads, selected because they aren’t popular with hikers or hunters.
The emitters themselves would be at least 14 feet above the forest floor. Risk to animals or humans would only occur if they put themselves in the direct path of the signal, close to the emitter, for an extended period of time.
“To cause harm, you’d have to levitate in front of the beam,” said Mike Welding, public affairs officer for NAS Whidbey.
Gaining public support for its expanded training plan would be beneficial to the Navy, not only in terms of gaining approval, but also in shoring up regional support of the Navy’s presence.
Navy officials have some PR work ahead of them to make their case. Further opening the lines of communication would go a long way toward building that case.
