Editor,
COER has twisted the truth again.
In a July 16 letter, COER claims that the Navy previously determined NAF El Centro provides higher quality of aviation training than Naval Air Station Whidbey Island, and that El Centro wants NAS Whidbey’s field carrier landing practices, or FCLPs, but the Navy has balked due to “money” concerns. On both claims, COER is 100 percent wrong.
COER President Mr. Wilbur references a 2017 Navy document. In reality, the specific Navy’s El Centro statement came from a 1990-era claim. At that time, Whidbey Islanders for a Sound Environment, or WISE, COER’s ancestor activist group, had launched an aggressive political campaign to close NAS Whidbey.
With allied politicians, this campaign was successful. The Navy placed NAS Whidbey on the 1991 closure list with a plan to consolidate West Coast attack squadrons at Lemoore, Calif., where FCLPs are done at El Centro. The activists were ecstatic. However, the objective DoD Closure Committee realized the Navy’s huge mistake — Whidbey had the top value of any naval air station and closure would put 58 percent of Island County workers out of a job.
The Navy was overruled and the activists remain outraged to this day.
Wilbur’s claim that El Centro wants NAS Whidbey FCLPs is bogus. El Centro has 20 times Coupeville’s population and already has saturated FCLP volume. This volume will grow and get louder with the joint strike fighters.
Moving NAS Whidbey’s FCLPs to El Centro is a non-starter. FCLP volume, already saturated, would require a new EIS taking years to complete and and would incur more environmental impact than NAS Whidbey.
Additionally, the Navy’s published operational requirement is to locate an outlying field within 50 miles of the home base, just like OLF Fentriss for NAS Oceana. OLFs simply don’t have the fuel and other infrastructure, hence, the 50-mile range is critical for efficient training.
The Navy assessed all military and civilian airports within this range. None were viable except OLF Coupeville.
Today, the dogmatic “close-the-base” activists and their allied politicians need to realize that NAS Whidbey now hosts the most squadrons of any Navy air station which provide critical electronic attack, reconnaissance and patrol functions for our nation.
Simply put, NAS Whidbey and the Northwest range complex is strategic, irreplaceable and is not going anywhere. It is high time that COER allied politicians place national defense and Island County’s economy over bogus activist claims that only result in court failure, like the recent injunction denial which, yet again, shredded all of COER’s wacky claims.
Scott Smith
Anacortes
