Fight The Navy Or Flights Overhead For N.C. Farmers

By Kate Wiltrout - February 13, 2006 - The Virginian-Pilot

WASHINGTON COUNTY, N.C. — Two years ago, when a group of North Carolina farmers refused to accept Navy plans for an outlying landing field on soil their families had tilled for generations, nobody gave them much of a chance.

They were ordinary citizens from two of the state’s poorest counties taking on the military during wartime.

Fast forward to 2006.

The empowered farmers have effectively stopped the Navy in its tracks – at least for now.

This is a troubling issue. Those who wish to stop the OLF have a great deal of justice and righteousness on their side. However they also have the problem of national security for a nation at war on the other side. At least one concern is the potential for damage to the nation if we lose the ability to train our pilots.

It can be said that the Navy has botched this whole issue. The failure of the Navy to anticipate the fervent opposition to the OLF based on loss of farming lifestyle and risk to the environment is typical of military leaders. We have the best military in the world. Partly that is because they focus on their jobs. They usually do not try to do politics. And as usual, when they get involved in politics, they mess up.

At least one reason they should have known not to go to Washington County is the prior experience of Weyerhauser. Weyerhauser only got to build a plant that has been a boon to the area, after they moved the location out of Washington County, into Martin County.

The NIMBY brigade is aided in their anger by the economic issues, that Virginia Beach - Chesapeake gets all the benefits and Washington County takes all the noise. There is simply something unfair about such a one sided solution. It will be interesting to see if after the current study, the Navy can craft a more politically acceptable answer than the one they came up with last time.