Waved off

Well-targeted opposition has sunk a proposed jet landing field in northeastern North Carolina. New options must be fairly judged

The U.S. Navy at long last has run up the white flag regarding a practice landing field for aircraft carrier pilots near a sensitive wildlife refuge full of large birds. It took five years for opposition to the poorly conceived plan finally to prevail. Yet the decision was the right one, and Navy brass deserve credit for a strategic retreat.

Opponents of the outlying landing field, or OLF, ranged from farmers around the site in Washington and Beaufort counties, to environmentalists concerned about harm to birds from nearby Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge, to most of North Carolina's top state and national politicians. There were worries about bird-aircraft collisions that could be fatal to pilots. The combination of environmental and safety issues, along with impacts on the area's agricultural traditions, outweighed the Navy's strange insistence that this was the best available site.

The Navy also now has dropped four other prospective North Carolina sites that had been on its final list. But it has added five new sites for consideration, clustered in northeastern North Carolina and southeastern Virginia. Those sites must be put through rigorous regulatory paces to see if any are suitable.

The two in North Carolina, in Gates County and astride the Camden-Currituck county border, immediately took flak. The state Senate President Pro Tem, Marc Basnight of Manteo, who represents Camden and Currituck, declared his opposition. Governor Easley, whose administration has helped with the site search, signaled that he would not want local opposition to be overridden.

The Navy seeks to replace its current OLF in fast-growing Chesapeake, Va. Super Hornet jets from Naval Air Station Oceana in Virginia Beach and carriers in the Atlantic fleet would use the new practice strip. Two Hornet squadrons would be based at Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point in North Carolina, the Navy says, but it now says those jets won't need to use the proposed OLF -- a change in plans.

The new sites have the obvious advantage of not being near a refuge used by thousands of waterfowl as a migration stopover. It's also true that military pilots need somewhere with dark nighttime conditions to practice carrier landings. And North Carolina wants to maintain its traditional support of the military, an important economic factor in the state as well as furthering the national defense.

For those reasons the Navy is owed an open mind. Even if it was reluctant to yield on the Washington County site, the service has acted in good faith to find alternatives. The five new locations ought to be judged on an orderly and sensible basis, certainly with the environment and a community's culture and economy taken into account. That said, hard questions should be asked as to whether the Navy might be able to get along without a new OLF after all. Might conditions have changed since the need first was projected?

Political arm-twisting or gamesmanship between North Carolina and Virginia leaders shouldn't play a part in the decision. If an OLF must be built, the goal should be to choose the site that causes the fewest adverse impacts of all kinds, regardless of where it happens to be.