Posted on 11/29/2004 11:00:42 AM PST by RepublicanReptile
Navy top gun calls the shots
By BILL SANDIFER, Staff Writer
As the Navy skated on the thinning ice surrounding its justification for a Washington County outlying landing field, a former Tiger Team member, Navy Cmdr. John Robusto, penned a document titled, "OLF justification verbiage." That paper was circulated among Tiger Team members who had been polishing the language to pass muster with high-level Navy officials.
That account is gleaned from a court brief summarizing more than 200,000 Navy documents turned over to OLF opponents' attorneys under court order. Those documents form the backbone of the latest brief filed by the law firm of Kennedy Covington and the Southern Environmental Law Center's legal team, suing to halt permanently Navy outlying landing field plans for its preferred Washington County site. The account also picks up the thread from two previous Daily News reports on the brief.
That document and many revisions to follow resulted from a May 2003 meeting Robusto attended with Navy Atlantic Fleet Commander Adm. Robert Natter and the Navy's top-ranking civilian leaders -- including acting Navy Secretary Hansford T. Johnson. Johnson and other top civilian leaders had turned thumbs down on the latest Tiger Team wording, wording that had passed muster with Natter, relates the legal brief. The Tiger Team comprised the frontline civilian and military advisers charged with making the OLF happen.
Following that meeting, "Tiger Team scrambled to respond," notes the brief. That response would mark a dramatic departure, a "U-turn," from Tiger Team's tack.
Tiger Team's Robusto, who had balked at "fabricating" material but agreed to "spin" the facts, wrote, "While we have always refrained from trashing (Altrntive Landing Field) Fentress, ADM Natter directed his bubbas to go ahead and do it here."
That radical change prompted an advisory e-mail from civilian environmental planner Dan Cecchini to Fred Pierson, Cecchini's assistant, who had missed the meeting: "(L)ots of (c---) happening."
Trump card?
Concurrent with the effort to "trash" existing facilities -- "degraded training" became the gentler description of what Virginia facilities were providing -- "surge" took the spotlight as justification for an OLF. Surge, according to the brief, was viewed as the Navy's "trump card."
Although other Navy testimony would acknowledge that surge situations -- accelerated training of massive forces for rapid deployment -- happen only once or twice in a decade, the brief contends "surge looked to be a godsend to a Navy bent on fashioning ... some sort of rationale supporting the OLF's development."
The day following the meeting, Robusto, once again, drafted new language in an attempt to satisfy civilian leaders in the Navy secretary's office. But those revisions clearly worried the author, who circulated a draft and an e-mail acknowledging, "there is a lot of dangerous ground here, but compared to my first 15 drafts of this language, I think this is the safest."
Tiger Team's language revisions and the manner in which they were inserted into the Final Environmental Impact Statement, argues the brief, "demonstrates without a shadow of a doubt that 'surge' is a trumped up excuse ... for the decision to put the OLF in North Carolina."
The language that made it into the FEIS appears to use careful wording to allow some wiggle room, stating existing facilities, during surge "do not have the capacity to meet the Atlantic Fleet's (carrier training) requirements efficiently."
The brief takes issue with the impression the language leaves, particularly in light of the fact that two Mideast wars had seen successful rapid military deployments with no apparent training deficiencies -- if the initial success of overwhelming military forces is the benchmark.
Prior to the July 2003 FEIS release, Tiger Team member Cecchini, in an e-mail, voiced fears that changes -- based on high-level demands for language revisions -- could become transparent to the reader. In a parenthetical comment, Cecchini writes "just tell the reader that this 'surge' issue is an emergent requirement and to essentially 'not pay attention' to the no OLF options in the book -- they are no longer viable based on new surge requirements -- a disclaimer if you will."
One of the FEIS readers to whom those changes did become transparent is Washington County Board of Commissioners Chairman Wesley Stokes who, during a state-Navy panel meeting, questioned Navy officials and received nothing more than blank stares.
The brief summarizes the three years of work the Navy had invested to put together the FEIS, contending that Navy civilian leadership "was now instructing the decisionmaker (itself) simply to ignore the option of not constructing an OLF, but not letting the public in on the secret that this 'decision' was prearranged."
Stokes may have had the opportunity to confront the Navy with its apparent contradictions, but he was not alone in seeing a shift in Navy arguments and resulting contradictions. On the streets -- and in the fields -- many theories were floated, but most who followed the issue had long ago concluded what Navy opposition law teams appear to have uncovered.
The top gun weighs in
Only a few days after Robusto's last revisions, "Secretary Johnson himself (the ultimate decisionmaker) weighed in, instructing the Tiger Team to modify even further the anti-Fentress language in the FEIS," alleges the brief.
A local delegation, prior to a meeting arranged by Sen. Elizabeth Dole, had been told that Johnson had not made up his mind on the Navy's final site selection. When delegation members arrived home from the Washington, D.C., meeting, many would relate a gut feeling that Johnson clearly had his mind made up and had too many ready answers to suit their comfort.
Later, Washington County Commissioner Billy Corey said he got word that Johnson had signed the Record of Decision -- selecting Washington County -- within an hour of the meeting's end.
During the process, a duel of political wits saw Cecchini and fellow team member Alan Zusman, exchanging private e-mails, debating the politics and potential huge cost of a facility that they clearly had not been convinced was necessary.
Wrote Zusman, "Existing OLF (Fentress) has capacity and encroachment can be tempered. ... If the issue were truly just have a new OLF for better training and next generation aircraft, the Government's preferred alternatives should have been 10/0 (squadron distributions) and build a new OLF. But alas, it wasn't. Hence my dilemma understanding the thought process behind the 150M+ investment we're facing."
Zusman had earlier argued that, since the Navy -- which continues to fly at its Virginia fields -- had never declared that encroachment on its Oceana and Fentress facilities impaired readiness, "we are left with anecdotal information as to the impact of the encroachment," information, the brief contends, does not meet National Environmental Policy Act standards. By federal law, NEPA standards must be met before an OLF can be built, an issue at the heart of the civil lawsuit against the Navy.
The brief argues similar shortcomings exist in the Navy's bird research, both as a hazard to pilots, and jet noise and pollution as a hazard to waterfowl wintering at adjacent Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge.
In an e-mail exchange with Cecchini, Robusto -- a Navy veteran with 15 years experience as a fighter pilot -- cited problems he had experienced flying near the Washington County site.
Robusto wrote, "I totally believe you that there are a bazillion swans in the area. I've seen them and had to pull off at low levels several times because of them. ... Operator's perspective: This is a big problem. Can it be mitigated? If yes, proceed. If no, is it a showstopper?"
Robusto indicated the question would have to be answered higher up the chain of command.
Tiger Team apparently recognized the bird problem conflicted with arguments and criteria the Navy had used to select the site, creating yet another dilemma: how to accommodate, or spin, the bird-strike issue.
Cecchini privately conceded that Site C "is smack dab in the middle of (the birds') route to (the foraging fields)" and raised the notion of not using the site during the four-to-five months of migratory season. Another Navy officer, instead, suggested limiting OLF operations during certain hours. Robusto, however, recognized either suggestion "flies in the face of the screening criteria: 24-hour operational capability."
Both suggestions, nonetheless, made it -- albeit briefly -- to street-level and were duly reported.
As the struggle between OLF proponents and opponents raged, Cecchini recognized that Mother Nature and her forces remained unruffled: "I understand that we must have a 24-hour capability but, whether we like it or not, birds don't give a damn about our needed capabilities."
The buck stops there
As reality continued to intrude on Navy plans, Robusto told Cecchini that Tiger Team would "let our leadership decide if they are willing to deviate from previously stated operational requirements."
The brief argues that Navy leadership did, indeed, allow many deviations that violated site-screening criteria but remained steadfastly opposed to entertaining any deviations that would resolve "alleged training conflicts" present at the Open Grounds Farm site, a Carteret County site OLF opponents consider an ideal alternative.
In summarizing its bird arguments, the brief recalls an earlier communique Robusto had sent Tiger Team members -- a caution on sensitive wording: "Severe is a four-letter word in aviation -- when something is severe (icing, turbulence, windsheer) pilots go elsewhere. Building an OLF in severe anything would not be prudent."
Site C, Washington County, early on was ranked -- in BASH potential -- "severe" for more than half the year -- the worst ranking of any potential sites the Navy has considered.
Navy ignores federal agencies -- forced to backtrack in federal court; motion calls for immediate, permanent halt to OLF -- in the next Daily News installment.
NC PING!
WTF is OLF?
When you find out tell me
It is an acronym for Outlying Landing Field. It is a purely politically motivated attempt to appease the residents of another state by placing the OLF in Eastern NC, rather than somewhere more suitable. The Navy neglected to go through the proper procedures, a wildlife preserve near the proposed site would put pilots in danger of death by bird, and lots of people will lose their land. A huge amouont of opposition has developed, from all over NC, and the coolest thing is, we are actually winning! As you can tell i do not like the idea of the OLF coming to my neighbor counties of Washington County and beaufort County.
Thanks for the explanation - I couldn't quite piece it together from the article.
Nov3 - see his post # 4
It also provides a training location for pilots to "shoot approaches." They don't really learn a lot if they only practice approaches and landings at a single air base."
We used OLFs during exercises to simulate being deployed overseas. It cuts the expenses of shipping a whole unit to Germany or the middle east.
For more background here is a link to an article I posted a few days ago.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1288006/posts
The critical need is for an airfield for FCLP (Field Carrier Landing Practice). Prior to landing on an aircraft carrier pilots need between 50 and 100 practice landings (about 10 landing per sortie) observed and graded by a Landing Signal Officer. With the current noise abatement policies pilots are forced to fly at weird hours and fly nonstandard patterns. What has basically happened is that people bought houses next to two active airfield and then decided they don't like jet noise.
You don't like jet noise??? As for birds, the whole city of Virginia Beach is a bird sanctuary. I'm not sure if Oceana has a sign around it telling the birds to stay out, but I'll ask some friends and let you know.
btw, I love jet noise. The reality is that Virginia Beach is growing and the local pols smells money money money. They want all that land for houses. The noise is just an excuse.
BTFOOM.
Please explain what that meant?
Re: BTFOOM
?
It's an obscure acronym containing the queen mother of obscenities.
Also, property values have been skyrocketing and will continue to do so if they can manage to keep the current noise level the same, which means more tax revenue. This means more $$$ for Oberndorf to spend on her cronies to help keep her in office the rest of her life. And yes, as you noted, they want to pack more houses around Oceana, for even more loot. (Actually, they are condos that are packed tighter than sardines. I can't figure out why anyone would want to live like that). I live in Kempsville, and the jet noise in my neighborhood is minimal.
Do you know what other sites have been proposed and why they aren't being picked? I wonder why they couldn't make improvements to the strip at Fort AP Hill.
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