Public Comment Period Extended Again for Northwest Training Range Complex EIS/OEIS

SILVERDALE, Wash. – The Navy is extending the public comment period for the Northwest Training Range Complex Environmental Impact Statement / Overseas Environmental Impact Statement (EIS/OEIS) to March 11, 2009, to allow for additional public input.

This special allowance within the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) process was made due to public comments received.

Navy Region Northwest Public Affairs

The Navy plans to increase training for Washington-based crews in its Northwest Training Range Complex, off the coasts of Washington, Oregon and northern California.

This will mean that Whidbey’s aircraft will fly more frequently. The EA-6B Prowlers (and their replacement EA-18 G Growlers) and P-3 Orions  (and their replacement P-8A Poseidons) exercises would double  at NAS Whidbey from almost 2,300 sorties per year to more than 4,500.

A draft Environmental Impact Statement is now available. The Navy is inviting public comment on the impact statement and has scheduled public hearings January 27 in Oak Harbor, January 28 in Pacific Beach, January 29 in Aberdeen, January 30 at Newport, Oregon, and February 2 at Eureka, California.

Comments by mail, using this form or through this web page form will be accepted until February 11, 2009.

Enviromental Impact Statement Web Site

What will be noise impacts for Guemes Island?

The Navy is proposing to create an enhanced training playground in the Pacific NW largely using existing airspace and ocean training areas, the Northwest Training Range Complex. By enhanced, I mean that the Navy will be simulating more kinds of combat using some of the newer aircraft and ship systems and integrating these in more realistic ways. Think of their proposal as a 21st-century combat computer game, except with real planes and ships. The DEIS lists the environmental impacts of the greater activity in existing level of use, plus what will likely be affected in two alternative proposals having increased activity. The Navy prefers one of the more active proposals that would double the number of flights to and from NAS Whidbey Island.

What will be noise impacts for Guemes Island and Skagit County? In the 1990's, Guemes Islanders fought an air war with the Navy because of EA6B flights that became concentrated over Guemes. At the time the Navy relocated a traffic pattern northwards to answer burgeoning noise complaints on Whidbey Island. They bet that rural Guemes was going to be placid, but their bet was poorly placed. Guemes Islanders put considerable political pressure onto the Navy. As a result, the Navy relented and relocated the overflights to the historical air traffic patterns over Whidbey.

NAS Whidbey Island is where some of the newer hardware will be based in the enhanced plan for the range airspace. The actual training, however, will take place miles away, much of it in the airspace and waters off the west coast of Washington and Oregon, as well as over the Okanogan.

Over the next few years the Navy will be replacing two plane types currently stationed at Whidbey.  The first is the aging P-3 Orion anti-submarine turboprop patrol plane, a militarized version of a 50's-era commercial passenger aircraft.  It will be replaced by the P-8, a Boeing 737-800, also a version of a familiar passenger  plane. The Navy plans to fly more missions than they currently do from NAS Whidbey, but the P-8 aircraft will be quiet, at least relative to the EA6B's that troubled Guemes more than a decade ago.

The replacement for the EA6B Prowlers will be the E-18 Growler, an electronic warfare version of the F/A-18 Superhornet.  Both of these aircraft have a mission of messing with enemy radars and communications.  The newer Growler, however, is faster and will also be able to defend itself better than the old Prowler, using air-to-air missiles and dogfighting tactics. This new capability will require more training for the Growler aircrews, thus providing some justification for the enhanced training ranges and increased use.

The EA-18 Growler has afterburner  engines and is generally noisier than the older Prowler. The Navy in their DEIS mapped out the expected noise footprint around NAS Whidbey Island. The illustration below shows the 2003 noise contours and the expected noise footprint in 2013. The contour lines represent average decibel levels, weighted for nighttime activity. The purple lines show the 65 Ldn impacts, officially considered the threshold level which creates noise complaints from residential neighbors.  Noise outside of the 65 Ldn purple lines is considered environmentally acceptable by the Navy (and also the FAA).

What does the larger noise footprint in 2013 practically mean? Since the Ldn contours are based on decibels, that scale is logarithmic. This means that a 6-decibel increase will have four times the noise energy.  Even so, the Navy's noise map does show that the footprint is only moderately expanded in 2013. The noise contours only show average calculations, they do not show the noise footprint of every aircraft wherever it may fly. It takes a repeated number of loud overflights to generate a 65 Ldn contour.  Skagit County and Guemes Island will not get that frequency of overflights and will not likely be a concern to the Navy.

However, if you are bothered by individual aircraft noise by the current level of EA-6B Prowler overflights, the EA-18's Superhornets will probably sound noisier to you.  The exact impact of these individual Superhornets passing over your head cannot be determined by the Navy's DEIS. In the document they did not provide enough detail on the traffic patterns and bad weather procedures to indicate any change from the current way they fly into Whidbey.  We just know from their text that the number of takeoffs and landings are expected to double, and that will likely mean that we will experience twice the number of random overflights that we currently get.

- Tim Rosenhan