US Fish and Wildlife Slams Navy Plans

Submitted by James on

Take a close read - it's well worth your time. And remember, the US Fish and Wildlife Service was listed as a "cooperating agency" in the Navy's plan for shock and awe in Washington County. This is the same US FWS that the Bush administration slapped a gag order on so they couldn't speak up on the issue over the past three months.

The next few weeks are critical in this fight. The Navy's stunning arrogance will be showcased in public hearings for all to see, while the two newest Senators representing Virginia, Liddy Dole and Dick Burr, will be missing in action.

Don't let up. This is crunch time. Contact your Democratic Congressman. Tell him to get involved and get in touch with David Price's office. Ignore your Republican Congressmen . . . just like they are ignoring North Carolina.

Comments

VBlog

Submitted by Unique on

Who's got the Vblog action?

We need a YouTube video.

Someone please tape those hearings.

Note FWS recommendations ignored

Submitted by plain vanilla on

As a result, the Service recommended that potential forage acre values within the 20-mile radius study area be corrected for availability. This recommendation was not accepted.

As a result, we recommended the Navy utilize a more realistic simulation scenario utilizing more than one jet, and that they also evaluate not only behavioral responses but physiological responses as well. These recommendations were not accepted.

Dan Besse will kick butt at the hearing

Submitted by James on

in Hertford tonight. This just in from his office in Winston-Salem:

My name is Dan Besse. I live at 1136 Miller Street, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, 27103.

You may wonder what a Winston-Salem resident is doing five hours drive from home to deliver three minutes of testimony. Let me suggest, first, that this is a measure of how important this part of our state, and the health of its people and its natural resources, are to all North Carolinians.

In addition, there is this: While I am currently a City Council Member in Winston-Salem, I lived and worked for a decade in New Bern. In my work as a legal aid attorney, and in my volunteer service for eight years as a member of the North Carolina Coastal Resources Commission, I traveled our coastal region. Like many other North Carolinians, I know and care for this area because it is part of my home, too.

And the message to you from people around our coast and across our state is this: You have selected one of the worst imaginable sites for placement of the proposed OLF. The so-called Site C adjacent to the Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge would put our best and brightest young Navy pilots squarely in the flight path of hundreds of thousands of large migratory waterfowl in the midst of their critical winter feeding grounds. That is a guaranteed recipe for disaster for both pilots and birds.

Ladies and gentlemen, I respect a can-do spirit, but I ask that it be tempered with reality. The idea that this particular facility can successfully operate at that spot without fatally compromising the value of the refuge is simply not reality.

Please let there be no mistake. We in North Carolina respect and honor the men and women of our armed services. My father proudly served our country as a member of the United States Marine Corps. In fact, he was serving our country overseas at the time I was born here in our state.

My Dad the Marine—and my Dad the hunter—would call the decision to place the OLF next to the wildlife refuge an example of rear-echelon bone-headed politics.

At least that's the language Dad would use if Mom were in hearing range. Otherwise, he might be more blunt.

So let me be blunt. Don't make this mistake. The state of North Carolina has offered to work with you to find a site that will will work for all of us. Take us up on that offer. Thank you.

Dan is a sitting city council member in Winston Salem and a candidate for lieutenant governor in 2008. I applaud him for speaking out on this issue and for s setting an awesome example for our do-nothing Senators.

I meet Councilmen Besse

Submitted by parmea on

today, and actual got to talk with him, I was in the process of preparing what I was going to say, so could not talk much with him. However, I was sitting outside the Auditorium with my little one handing out NO OLF stickers and encouraging folks to write comments.

He had a genuine quality that was refreshing. I did not realise that he was running for any kind of office. In my opionion, he was here in Perquimans County not as a person running for LT. Gov, but as a concerned citizen. Politicans like that are nice to have around. His agenda is to do the right thing. When I was talking with him, just about stuff, he never mentioned that he was thinking about running for LT Gov. Here is a guy who is letting action speak louder then words.

rear echelon bone-headed politics

Submitted by Betsy Muse on

hahahahaha..... Good for Dan.

Robin Hayes lied. Nobody died, but thousands of folks lost their jobs.



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Vote Democratic! The ass you save may be your own.

Another state official comes out against the OLF

Submitted by James on

This time, it's Republican Steve Troxler, Commissioner of Agriculture.

State agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler sent a letter today to U.S. Navy Secretary Donald Winter urging him to reconsider the proposed outlying landing field in eastern North Carolina. The proposed site, near the border of Washington and Beaufort counties, would affect 30,000 acres of farmland.

Troxler said in the letter that the landing field would take too much farmland from a state already losing too much.

::

“The project would affect 30,000 acres of farmland through acquisition and use restrictions. Eighty-nine percent of that acreage is used for production agriculture, including 17,000 acres where corn and soybeans are grown. These crops are important feedstocks, and the Navy’s proposal would further reduce our state’s limited supply at a time when both demand and prices are high. The current OLF proposal would cause estimated agricultural losses of up to $6 million annually.

“This isn’t just about economics. In his State of the Union address, President Bush called for America to diversify its energy supply with agriculture-based fuels such as ethanol. The President said energy independence is a matter of national security, and I agree with him. We must develop renewable fuels as alternatives to foreign oil. We also must make sure that we can continue to produce our own safe and wholesome food supply. The Navy’s proposal would affect our state’s ability to help the country meet both of these goals.”

Oh my god. A Republican talking sense. Now maybe Liddy Dole and Dick Burr will find the courage to get off their butts and do something.

Thank You

Submitted by Unique on

Thank You Dan Besse and Steve Troxler.

Thank God somebody gets it.

I hope they talk to all their friends and colleagues as well.

This is why

Submitted by Blue South on

having a Democratic Congress in place is so nice. Can you say "Congressional Protection" ? I know I can. Thanks to Fish and Wildlife service.

Draft Brad Miller -- NC Sen ActBlue :::Petition

"Keep the Faith"

Talked with the Director of

Submitted by parmea on

NE region of USFWS, and I asked him about the bash plan and the impacts these planes would have on the region. He stated that the intentions of the USFWS is to work with other agencies to work in harmony with the regions wildlife and in this case, the jets. The Navy's bash plan is strickly from the pilots point of view. Cooperating with the creatures of the region is not the prefered desire of the Navy.

My cut on this statement was the USFWS wishes to work with the Navy to explain to them ways to coexist with the birds if possible. If not, which is true for site C and D, and mostly true for site A, then the recommendation is to use a diffrent site. The Navy says they can manage this bird problem by driving them away or flat out killing them. Seems to me, the plan of the Navy is to eradicate the birds anywhere and anytime they get in the way until there is no birds that will have the instinct to fly to this region.

Well, I'll Be...

Submitted by Unique on

Eight years is the average lifespan. Many birds live to be much older.

and

Snow geese are grazers. While on the breeding grounds, they feed mainly on grasses and sedges.

Although Site C isn't a breeding ground, planting grass ain't gonna help much.

How many generations to breed instinct out? My w.a.g. would be at least 4 generations. I could be very low - birds weren't my specialty

No links this time, friends. I will not aid and abet any hostile lurkers. Trust me on this one. My source is impeccable.

I was thinking it would be much

Submitted by parmea on

faster then that, any bird that can be construed as a threat, would be kilt, there, no more instinct to come back here, and that instinct is not passed onto next generation. That family tree is done.

Dont know what happens with these birds if they "mate for life" when their mate is now gone? do they find a new mate? do these birds mate for life??

No, No

Submitted by Unique on

Parmea. That is not how instinct works in birds. They'd have to kill all the birds that use that refuge.

Ones that have in the past will return again until they have no memory of that place.

It would have to be wholesale slaughter to work much faster than that.

At the Perquiman's meeting someone mentioned

Submitted by Susan on

the flight of hundreds of thousand Blackbirds. There are millions of them on the Albemarle/Pamlico Penn. Maybe the Navy could rig a giant size vacuum cleaner to suck them out of the sky.

When those black birds

Submitted by parmea on

are flocking, they are impressive. Ive seen em where they looked like a black mass on the horizon. These birds are funny also, if they are flying over your head, and you clap real loud, they will all change direction. Which means you now have two black masses flying around.

These birds are up right at sunrise and sunset. Ive seen em where it took over 2 minutes for the flock to fly over my house.

If a plane came up on this mass, it would be devestating. These birds do fly right over the proposed site A alot. About mid nov to mid jan, these birds flock.

Get this one...

Submitted by Susan on

By Mark Hibbs
NEWS-TIMES

MOREHEAD CITY

Citing the expected benefits to the region, the Carteret County Economic Development Council (EDC) voiced its support at a public hearing Thursday in New Bern for the Navy's selection of an Eastern North Carolina site for a practice airfield.

The Navy recently released its draft supplemental environmental impact statement (DSEIS) on its proposed outlying landing field site selection. The OLF would be used to simulate nighttime aircraft carrier landings by pilots of F/A-18 E/F Super Hornet squadrons based at Naval Air Station Oceana in Virginia and Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point.

At the public hearing on the DSEIS, EDC Director Dave Inscoe presented a resolution passed last week by the EDC board in favor of the OLF.

We stand to gain 400 new jobs without the state having to pay incentives, Mr. Inscoe said.

That would bring significant economic benefits to Carteret County , he said. The EDC's resolution noted that the DSEIS confirmed Site C as the best alternative.

We strongly support the Navy's efforts to locate the field in Washington County and believe that this location is the best choice for the Navy, the United States and the state of North Carolina , the EDC said in its resolution.

The resolution was also sent earlier this week to Gov. Mike Easley, Rep. Walter Jones, R-N.C.; Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C.; Sen. Elizabeth Dole, R-N.C.; N.C. Sen. Jean Preston, R-Carteret; County Commissioner Doug Harris and retired Maj. Gen. Hugh Overholt, who leads Allies for Cherry Points Tomorrow (ACT), a citizens advocacy group formed to support military operations in the area.

The people of Carteret/Craven Counties must be wearing a lot of polyester these days. It’s imperative for them to dress properly in order to keep all the saliva that is pouring out of their mouths from soaking into their clothes. They just cannot stop thinking of all the money money money they will receive in lieu of destroying a region. Maybe Richard Burr can come out with a new look in waders for the citizens to wear as they flood their town with greed.

Pathetic

Submitted by Unique on

"We stand to gain 400 new jobs without the state having to pay incentives, Mr. Inscoe said."

Willing to settle for scraps. How many jobs will be lost by this travesty?

Farmers don't work alone. They hired people, too. They have to if they have any size at all. That's too much work to do alone.

Correct me if I'm wrong - but I don't think so.

If Craven and Carteret want it so bad - they can have it and duke it out with their people there.

Easy to say 'goody' when it's not happening to you.

Craven general public against Site C

Submitted by plain vanilla on

At the Craven County OLF Public Hearing, most of the general public from Craven County was against Site C in Washington and Beaufort counties. I heard eloquent speeches from the Craven general public opposing an OLF at site C. Those that were endorsing Site C were the money-grubbing officials.

OLF site gets mixed reviews
Mar 22, 07 New Bern Sun Journal, Sue Book

Navy plans for an eastern North Carolina OLF continued to get mixed reviews from 37 people who spoke at a public hearing Thursday night in New Bern.
There was added opposition in Craven County following remarks Monday by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services director that the proposed Craven site should be looked at harder before the Navy settles on a Washington County site near Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge.
But most of the opposition focused on Washington County, which retired physician Bob Holmes of Trent Woods, an avid birdwatcher, said was a choice “born in ignorance and propagated in arrogance.”
“If you haven’t been to Pungo, you can’t imagine what it’s like,” he said. “The spectacle of hundreds of thousands of birds is an attraction unequaled on the East Coast.”

Thanks for the insightful remarks.

Submitted by Susan on

It is refreshing to see that there are a great number of people in Craven and Carteret counties who want to do the right thing. Not only do what is right for the people of North Carolina, but our nation as well.

The folks fighting for their lives in Northeastern North Carolina are people who help create food, clothing and shelter for the rest of the world. Not only do they realize they are blessed with jobs that allow them to bring sustenance and life to people and animals they also conscientiously work to help keep balance to a very fragile environment.

I have found that once most people hear the truth about John Warner's railroad job to appease his money grubbing supporters and his unrestrained use of the Navy's hatchet men to keep his nose clean their sense of decency prevails.