Public Response & Participation

4,355 comments were submitted to the Navy in response to its Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS). Over the past few years, an additional 33,000 letters have been sent to the Secretaries of Agriculture and the Interior, the Navy, the Forest Service, and elected officials at all levels. Hundreds of calls have been made to the Navy’s noise complaint hotline.
A DEIS is mandated to be fewer than 300 pages. The DEIS for proposed Growler flights exceeds 1,400 pages, making it difficult for citizens to review.
Despite its length, the DEIS failed to provide essential information. Important statistics (like the 22 crashes since 2000 of the EA-18G and its closely related F/A-18 E,F aircraft) were withheld. It also omitted several aggravating factors at the Outlying Field that are conducive to catastrophic accidents capable of endangering the populace, the environment, local properties, and the pilots themselves.

Local leaders repeatedly requested meetings with the Navy to discuss the Section 106 Process relevant to Ebey’s Historical Reserve. The Navy has ignored these requests.

This decision—to single site all Growlers in Puget Sound—comes from “the other Washington,” which has no sense of our state, regional, or local conditions and needs.

Washington State’s Attorney General has filed a lawsuit in Seattle District Count alleging that a Navy environmental review unlawfully fails to fully measure the impacts to public health and the environment. Washington State Governor Jay Inslee said that the expanded Navy training “could result in disproportionate impacts on the state’s environment, health, and quality of life.”

We demand a fair chance to be heard regarding this unprecedented encroachment on public and private lands and waters, in our state and national parks, and in the skies over our communities. All along, we have voiced our opposition; the Navy and the Department of Defense have refused to hear us.