North Carolina Governor Mike Easley recognizes the need for an
OLF (Outlying Landing Field) Study Committee

Governor´s special committee raises many questions about Navy´s plan to build training airfield in poor, mostly black North Carolina county.

A special committee appointed by N.C. Gov. Mike Easley compiled a long list of environmental and economic reasons why the U.S. Navy should not build a huge training airfield in Washington County, one of the state´s poorest counties.

Sid Eagles, retired chief judge of the N.C. Court of Appeals, chaired the 17-member panel.

The report makes the following points about the Navy´s plans:

· The wildlife refuge provides winter habitat for 25 percent of the tundra swans in eastern North America.
· International scientists rank the refuge as one of the 50 most important in the world.
· Building the airfield could have a number of adverse impacts on the birds using the refuge during the winter.
· The proposed site has the worst hazard rating for possible collisions between fighter jets and birds of any military jet training field in the nation.
· The Navy says it has experience managing bird strike hazards, but it did not provide the committee an example of a site where it had successfully managed a hazard potential similar to the one that would exist at the Washington County site.
· The study group doesn´t understand why the Navy needs so much land for the airfield.
· The Navy will impose restrictions on what farmers can grow on the land, and this will hurt the farmers economically.
· The airfield would remove at least $185,000 in tax revenue every year from Washington County, which is perpetually strapped for cash.
· The airfield could harm the quality of life in Washington and Beaufort counties and offer little benefit in return.
· The Navy should be more precise about the flight patterns jets will follow in using the airfield and do an accurate demonstration of how noise from the jets would affect residents.
· The study group doesn´t think the reasons the Navy cited for passing up a potential airfield site in nearby Carteret County were significant enough to justify not putting it there.
· Until the Navy resolves these and other concerns, the study group recommends putting the airfield at another site in North Carolina.