Not in North Carolina's backyard? Well, not without another fight, it seems. Newly announced possible sites for a Navy outlying landing field (OLF) have quickly generated a new round of NIMBYism.
Earlier this year, local and statewide opposition -- well-founded opposition -- derailed the Navy's first choice for the OLF site. That location, on the Washington-Beaufort county line, was just too close to a national wildlife refuge.
This week, only hours after the state revealed a list of a half-dozen alternative sites, some of the locations came under heavy fire. Notably, state Senate President Pro Tem Marc Basnight of Manteo told the Daily Advance of Elizabeth City that "I believe it would be awful" if either of two Camden County sites was chosen.
Basnight, whose district includes Camden, said the 52 jobs the OLF would create wouldn't compensate for the jet noise and lowered property values the project would bring. The Senate Democratic leader was reported to oppose any of four new sites in northeastern North Carolina. (In theory, several "old" sites are also in the hunt.)
Couple Basnight's opposition with similar comments from local elected officials such as the chairman of the Gates County Board of Commissioners and the forecast is for heavy weather ahead for the Navy and the OLF.
The outlying landing field, to be brief, is intended as a training facility for pilots practicing carrier landings. It would have a runway, equipment and not much else -- thus the small number of local jobs. Many of the landings would be at night, and the F/A-18 jets, based near Norfolk, Va., are loud. There's an existing OLF in the Norfolk area, but it's been surrounded by development and the Navy wants a new one. Virginia, like North Carolina, is offering a passel of possible sites.
The Camden County possibilities include one partly on land formerly slated for a "mega-landfill" until a new state law prohibited solid waste dumps near wildlife refuges, and another near the Blackwater USA complex. Two sites are proposed in Gates County, and two in the state's southeast. The latter are on the Jones-Onslow county line and the Duplin-Pender line.
If the Navy wants to duck Basnight's ire, the admirals should train their spyglasses to the southeast.
That, after all, is where Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point is located (near Havelock). Cherry Point figures heavily in the whole OLF puzzle. Although the bulk of the new F/A-18 Super Hornets are at Naval Air Station Oceana in Virginia Beach, two squadrons are being based at Cherry Point, brought there in part as a sweetener for North Carolina during the earlier plan to build the OLF at the Washington-Beaufort site.
Obviously, a southeastern North Carolina OLF would be ideal for the Cherry Point-based squadrons. Just as clearly, it would be a long haul, perhaps prohibitively so, for Oceana-based pilots.
Conversely, the Virginia sites might be too far from Cherry Point. And there's local opposition in the Virginia counties to hosting a new OLF.
What's the Navy to do? If it's willing to battle the Basnight brigade, it could stick to its guns and insist that any appropriate sites in northeastern North Carolina (ruling out Washington-Beaufort) be given fair consideration by all involved. That would simply hold the state to its promise, made last spring, to help find a suitable site if the Navy backed away from the bird sanctuary.
The bolder solution lies nearer Cherry Point. Popular feeling in that area seems friendly to "the sound of freedom," as military jet noise is often called. Basing additional squadrons there would have a big economic impact, so there'd be ample compensation for the inconvenience involved. Maybe even more of the Navy's Super Hornets should head on down to Marine country.
