Editor,

I rejoice that our courts decided that OLF Coupeville must be kept open.

I’m writing as I cannot help but note COER leader Bob Wilbur said, “The landing practice noise has made it so bad and caused so much needless harm and upheaval in the community under the flight pattern we concluded we had to try” for an injunction that would recklessly endanger so many American servicemember lives.

Let me be clear; land-use policy created this “needless harm and upheaval in the community under the flight pattern,” and it is land-use policy that will end this nightmare.

I hope when local officials consider the Navy’s recommendations in the upcoming Air Installation Compatible Use Zone study or AICUZ; they just point to Mr. Wilbur’s quote in the March 6, 2021 Whidbey News-Times, smile and vote “yes.”

Because a new outlying field would require a second EIS, years of study and litigation, and finally hundreds of millions in easements and construction. Not going to happen and the need is now for land use reform.

Finally, I have some recommended reading: “The Sound of Freedom at Naval Air Station Whidbey: Environmental Impact Review Under the National Historic Preservation Act and National Environmental Policy Act,” written by James K. Kelly.

It’s a free legal paper by a Villanova Law School student that predicted last week’s awesome outcome and COER’s very likely defeat with ample documentation and citation.

Joe A. Kunzler

Sedro Woolley