In September 2003, the U.S. Navy announced plans to build a jet landing strip directly adjacent to Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge. The refuge is winter home to more than 100,000 Tundra Swans and Snow Geese. It also supports one of highest densities of black bear in the country. And reintroduced red wolves, a federally endangered species, have family groups throughout the refuge and surrounding farm lands, and have confirmed dens on the place the Navy plans its airfield.

The National Audubon Society, North Carolina Wildlife Federation, and Defenders of Wildlife entered legal challenges to the proposal in January 2004. Washington and Beaufort counties, the areas designated for the landing field, where up to 100 family farms would be condemned or controlled by the Navy, joined in the suit. Rulings in federal district and appeals courts ordered the Navy to temporarily stop its plans and do additional studies. At the end of February 2007, the new studies were released by the Navy.

Unfortunately, the Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (DSEIS) makes clear the Navy’s intention of still trying to make the same unsuitable site work. It can’t. The documents reveal the Navy’s intention of moving birds based at the refuge away from the area by eliminating their feeding areas, by harassing them, and by killing those that persist in the area. While these techniques are perhaps necessary for safety at existing airstrips where a new bird or wildlife hazard may be present, they are wholly unjustified at a location that can be avoided altogether. The refuge and birds have been here for decades.

The Navy claims the field is needed to support new Super Hornet (F/A 18) jets being stationed at Virginia’s Oceana Naval Air Station and North Carolina’s Cherry Point Marine Corps Air Station. More than 31,000 noisy take-offs and landings would be performed throughout the year at the airfield, which offers no economic benefits to the local community. If the Navy truly urgently needs this capacity, North Carolina’s governor has repeatedly offered to work on an alternative solution. Instead, the governor has been ignored and rebuffed.

Only the leaders in Congress can now move the Navy off this disastrous idea. There is no justification for damaging a national refuge, destroying communities, and putting our pilots at risk to save the Navy the awkwardness of correcting its mistake.

Attend one of the following six public hearings to give your written and/or verbal comments to the U.S. Navy. Click on a city below for more details:

Monday, March 19th-Mattamuskeet Elementary School Swan Quarter, NC

Tuesday, March 20th-Bertie High School Windsor, NC

Wednesday, March 21st-Perquimans County High School Hertford, NC

Thursday, March 22nd-Craven County Community College New Bern, NC

Tuesday, April 3rd-Beaufort Community College Washington, NC

Wednesday, April 4th-Vernon G. James Research and Extension Center NCSU Plymouth, NC