By Cain Madden

The Tidewater News

Residents of Western Tidewater can sleep a little easier with the Navy’s announcement that it is abandoning its plans for an outlying landing field for fighter jet practice, said Southampton County Administrator Mike Johnson said Tuesday.

“It was gratifying that the Navy has seen fit to cancel this,” he said. “Residents who have been waiting about what decisions to make with their homes for a little more than six years can breathe a collective sigh of relief.”

The Navy has canceled the Draft Environmental Impact Statement for the OLF to be located in either Northeastern North Carolina or Southeastern Virginia. More specifically, the Navy has been considering three sites for the OLF in Virginia since 2008, one entirely in Southampton County, one on the border of Southampton and Sussex counties and one within Surry County.

The environmental study had previously been suspended in January of 2011, pending the determination of a home base for the Joint Strike Fighter squadrons, or F-35 aircraft. The decision on where to base the squadrons has been delayed until at least 2017, Navy officials said in a news release.

Barry Steinberg, a Washington, D.C., attorney representing local OLF opponents, said the Navy could consider the issue of placing an OLF in Western Tidewater after 2017, when it makes a decision regarding the F-35, although he doesn’t expect that.

“The fat lady has sung,” he said.

Steinberg, who was hired by Southampton, Sussex, Surry, Isle of Wight and Greensville counties to fight the OLF, said he was not too surprised about the announcement.

“In my judgment, the passage of time brought us to where we are today,” he said. “It was clear they were not prepared to make a decision on stationing the F-35.

“A lot of the data they had collected for the study was stale. Ecosystems are not static. I think it was the right decision, it is only tragic that it was not made three years ago.”

Steinberg said there are several dimensions to the decision, including political and budgetary issues, the underlying need of the base, and also the long-term viability of Naval Air Station Oceana.

The five-county local coalition put up a fight the Navy didn’t expect, Steinberg said. They had set out to show that Virginia Beach would get all of the benefits of the naval base, and Western Tidewater would simply get the noise, while also losing 20,000 to 30,000 taxable acres.

Environmental and wildlife factors also were significant, Steinberg said.

The F-35 itself is over budget and delayed in production, he said, and the Navy is considering moving aircraft carriers to the Pacific. If one moves out of the Hampton Roads area, the issue is solved as far as needing an OLF, which could cost up to $500 million.

“There is a drumbeat to reduce the Defense Department budget, and there are issues with the F-35 on top of that,” Steinberg said. “There’s too much uncertainty, and too much opposition for the Navy to continue.”

Steinberg, a retired army colonel, said there was never a question about the need for pilot proficiency.

“The skill and courage required of an aircraft carrier pilot is as highly valued as any single other military skill set that you can find,” he said. “You need to practice landing and taking off in a carrier. No one would argue that.”

“But when you take 30,000 acres of land that is taxable, prime for agriculture, and put it together with issues of roads, streams, forests and wildlife; and then you take a relatively quiet neighborhood that doesn’t have much nighttime noise at all, and you introduce supersonic jets that go in a circle over and over and make noise, people will fight it.”

Congressman Randy Forbes (VA-4) in a statement Tuesday said, “Last year we worked with localities and the Navy to resolve the Navy’s need to find a location for its C-2 and E-2 training. While the Navy has chosen to cancel its need for a second OLF at this time, the Wallops outcome is a model for the type of cooperation we should look to in the future to help balance the very real concerns of our localities with Navy training needs.”