Fight the Outlying Landing Field
Anyone who's seen a map of southeastern Virginia knows there are major naval operations adjoining large tracts of wilderness land which continue into North Carolina. A more certain target area for military ambition was never crafted. The Outlying Landing Field or OLF is a practice airstrip meant to simulate landing procedures on an aircraft carrier, which was originally proposed to be built in NC's Washington and Beaufort Counties along Albemarle Sound, but was rejected by those counties along with four others. The proposal moves from county to county, now hotly contested in Gates, Camden and Currituck Counties, and across the VA border into Surry, Sussex and Southampton.*
These estuaries are where migratory birds from the entire length of the Eastern Seaboard came from, along with endemic species of the isolated maritime forests, but as this ambition moves west it is simply encroaching on rural Virginia communities nowhere near a naval base. The major purpose of the strip is the transfer of fighter squadrons to the east coast for deployment to Iraq, and the training of those pilots.*
The navy's "scoping" meetings to draw public support begin on April 29 in Prince George, Surry, Sussex and Southampton. (Surry's opposition is having a public meeting the same night.) The locations and times are posted at www.novaolf.com. Del. Bob Marshall is an outspoken opponent of the OLF, and Pres. Bush vetoed a defense bill in December which included a provision to withhold funding for an OLF site.** The official website for this project at www.olfeis.com is a shameless environmental pacifier and denial of the impact. More info can be found at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outlying_Landing_Field, although this itself seems to grab at straws about the environmental effects of a massive habitat and community destruction to support an overseas war. One would think the navy would get the idea. Updates on this fight and ways to get involved are posted at www.noolf.com.
*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outlying_Landing_Field
**www.noolf.com