Navy building beside national wildlife refuge

Navy building beside national wildlife refuge



Feb 2007 - North 
Carolina Governor Mike Easley on Friday criticized the U.S. 
Navy for failing to back off its proposal to build a jet 
landing strip beside a national wildlife refuge. For the first 
time, the governor urged Congress to withhold money for the 
construction. 
"I believe this matter can be resolved, but spending millions 
of dollars to build the proposed outlying landing field next 
to a world-renowned wildlife refuge for migratory birds is not 
an acceptable resolution," Easley wrote in a letter to North 
Carolina's congressional delegation, according to the Raleigh 
based "News & Observer" newspaper. 
"Congress controls the purse strings for this project, and 
Congress should withhold funding until the Navy is willing to 
consider reasonable alternatives," the governor wrote. 
The Navy has released a supplemental environmental impact 
statement, SEIS, justifying its decision to build a $230 
million landing field near Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife 
Refuge in eastern North Carolina. 
The SEIS comes after a district court ruling in 2005 found 
that the Navy's initial environmental impact statement was 
flawed and filled with inaccurate assessments on how the 
landing field would affect surrounding wetlands. 
The court ordered the Navy to prepare the supplemental 
environmental impact statement to address the problems found 
in its original planning document. 
Concentrations of ducks, geese, tundra swans, raptors and 
black bears are found in the refuge which is also a 
reintroduction site of the endangered red wolf. 
In the immediate area, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has 
found increasing bald eagle and red wolf populations, both 
threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. The 
Navy's SEIS recognizes the presence of these species, but says 
construction of the landing field should proceed anyway. 
The report also states that the landing field would discourage 
waterfowl on more than 17,000 acres of farmland by converting 
land to crops and grasses that waterfowl avoid. 
"Just as they have done for the past four years, the Navy has 
come to its own predetermined conclusions, despite clear 
evidence that building a landing field near Pocosin Lakes 
National Wildlife Refuge is not justifiable, safe or 
consistent with the Navy's intended goals," saidd Rodger 
Schlickeisen, president of Defenders of Wildlife. 
"The Pocosin Lakes Wildlife Refuge had record numbers of snow 
geese and tundra swans this year. Scheduling nearly 30,000 
yearly fighter jet landings smack dab in the middle of the 
wintering area for tens of thousands of these birds is a 
recipe for disaster," he said. 
The Wilderness Society, too, opposes the Navy's plan. "The 
Navy must select an environmentally preferable site for its 
proposed landing field and special use airspace. It would be 
thoughtless and reckless of the Navy to build an Outlying 
Landing Field in such an environmentally sensitive and 
valuable area as Washington County, North Carolina," said the 
environmental group. 
Last year, red wolf pups were born on the end of the proposed 
runway site. Other alternative sites the Navy publicly stated 
it would re-examine would not put the lives of pilots at risk 
or destroy the integrity of a federally protected wildlife 
refuge, say the conservation groups. 

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