[MilCom] NC Landing Field

[Punworg]

Attorneys present court arguments over Navy landing
field in N.C.

Associated Press
	
Jan 11, 2005

RALEIGH, N.C. - Internal Navy e-mail messages reveal a
lack of objectivity in the choice of a proposed
landing field in eastern North Carolina, attorneys
trying to block the field said in newly filed court
papers.

Lawyers for environmental groups and two counties
suing to block the Navy's proposed outlying landing
field, or OLF, said in court papers filed Monday that
the Navy's paper trail shows the flawed process.

The skeptical e-mail messages _ including one in which
an environmental planner complained to a colleague of
having to "reverse engineer" the process to justify
the outcome _ were not isolated excerpts as the Navy
contends, opponents said.

In its own filing Monday, the Navy urged the court to
find in its favor and said OLF opponents "continue to
selectively quote from the administrative record in a
distorted version of the facts."

Replies from both sides to the others' arguments were
due Monday in advance of a federal district court
hearing Jan. 19 on the merits of the case.

Opponents want a federal judge in Raleigh to block the
landing field until the Navy does another site
selection and takes the required hard look at
environmental effects on nearby Pocosin Lakes National
Wildlife Refuge.

"We're looking for a permanent injunction, an order
that would send the Navy back to the drawing board,"
said Michelle Nowlin, an attorney with the Southern
Environmental Law Center, which is representing the
environmental groups.

The Navy wants to buy 30,000 acres in Washington and
Beaufort counties and build a remote landing field for
squadrons of F/A-18 Super Hornets to practice carrier
landings.

Opponents contend that the Navy picked the site for
political reasons and massaged the environmental
studies to justify its choice. They said Navy leaders
sought to base Super Hornets at Oceana Naval Air
Station in Virginia while relieving noise at the
existing Fentress Landing Field, so they chose a site
in North Carolina for practices and assigned two
squadrons to North Carolina. They say the Navy did not
adequately consider the harm to migratory birds at the
refuge and threat to pilots posed by collisions with
masses of birds.

The Navy contends that the 190,000 pages of documents
contained in the administrative record show that
planners followed federal environmental law exactly as
intended. Navy lawyers say the internal e-mail
messages show there was a free exchange of concerns
and viewpoints.

But attorneys for the opponents say the e-mail
messages were private concerns not widely distributed.

They said the Navy sought to drown the truths
expressed by its personnel, but the messages spoke to
the Navy's failure to comply with basic environmental
obligations.

The Navy wants to buy land at the site from willing
property owners. Last week, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court
of Appeals in Richmond, Va., lifted a temporary ban on
real estate or planning activity pending a decision.

The Navy has bought 1,157 acres of the 3,000 acres
needed for the field itself for $3.7 million.

The appeals court has a hearing scheduled Feb. 1 to
consider the issue further.

Meanwhile, U.S. Rep. G.K. Butterfield urged the Navy
to hold off on buying land for the landing field until
lawsuits over the strip are resolved.

Butterfield, a Democrat who represents the district in
which the field would be built, was responding to a
statement Friday by the Navy that it intends to resume
buying land in Beaufort and Washington counties.

"It would irresponsible to use taxpayers' money before
all the legal issues are sorted out," Butterfield said
in a statement. "I'm simply asking the Navy to wait."


		
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