Jefferson County's Democrats are not impressed with the U.S. Forest Services' handling of a Navy plan to train Growler jet pilots in detecting enemy electronic signals over the Olympic Peninsula.

"People are getting educated about the ramifications of this and they're getting educated as to what the public process has been up to this point," said the party's chair George Yount. "We're being careful not to say whether we're for it or not, but we are saying we want to see a public process."

Some 42 party members voted unanimously Tuesday, Nov. 18 during a special meeting at the Port Townsend Community Center, adopting a resolution calling for more time to collect public concerns as well as set public hearings in the county seat of Jefferson, Clallam and Grays Harbor counties to give citizens a chance to challenge the Navy's finding of no significant environmental impact.

Currently, the deadline for public comments is Friday, Nov. 28. They can be emailed to Greg Wahl, Forest Environmental Coordinator with the Forest Service, at gtwahl@fs.fed.us, or sent to Wahl at 1835 Black Lake Blvd. S.W., Olympia, WA 98512. The Forest Service's web-page dedicated to this project bit.ly/lpygQil features project documents for public review, a portal for submitting comments online and a reading room where people can read some 2,550 others' comments.

The resolution also asks that the Forest Service, "being aware of the public controversy," hold off on permitting the use of roads in the Olympic National Forest until the Navy produces a full environmental impact statement.

The resolution calls on elected representatives to push Navy and Forest Service officials to provide a more complete public process before permitting the project to move ahead.

Yount said the resolution, along with a short cover statement, would be sent to U.S. Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, U.S. Rep. Derek Kilmer, state Sen. Jim Hargrove, state

Reps. Kevin Van De Wege and Steve Tharinger, Jefferson County's board of commissioners, Port Townsend City Council, the state Department of Natural Resources, as well as the chairs of the Clallam and Grays Harbor Democratic parties.

PARTY CHAIRS

Roger Fight, chair of the Clallam County Democrats, said Nov. 21 after an executive board meeting that a three-person committee would review the resolution before it's presented to his party's full membership on Jan. 10 for adoption.

Fight said he doesn't expect the language of the resolution to change much before adoption. He also said he hopes the party's action doesn't create a partisan divide on the issue.

"I do see this as an issue that would be best moved forward in a nonpartisan way in Clallam County," said Fight, adding that executive board members discussed how to best reach out to the county's Republican party. "We hope our action won't be seen as making this a partisan issue. As people become more informed about this, I am convinced it will have broad based concern."

Fight said party members would likely need to brush up on the issue themselves.

George Smylie, chair of the Grays Harbor County Democrats, said Nov. 21 he planned to share the resolution with his fellow executive board members and said it could receive full membership consideration at the party's Dec. 4 meeting.

While he feels it's likely his party could get behind the resolution's call to action, Smylie said endorsing statements in its whereas list would require some fact-checking.

"I am always in favor of the public having a chance to have input," he said.

BACKGROUND

The $11.5 million project, which would be the Navy's first use of mobile emitters of electromagnetic radiation for training that pilots currently simulate with internal aircraft controls, requires a special-use permit from the Forest Service in order to use its roads during exercises.

Three modified utility trucks fitted with electromagnetic radiation 14-foot emitter antennas that shoot radio signals straight up into the sky would depart Naval Station Everett Annex Pacific Beach to set up on any of 15 pre-selected sites, 12 of which are on Olympic National Forest roads, for as many as 16 hours each day for 260 days each year.

EA-18G Growlers would then depart from Naval Air Station Whidbey Island to the west end of the Olympic National Forest to practice detecting and identifying these radio signals.

"What were trying to do here is provide the pilots just basic electromagnetic warfare training," said Navy spokesperson Lianne Nakahara, adding that the Navy has been conducting similar training for years at Mountain Home Air Force Base in Idaho, some 400 miles away. "What these air crews need to learn to do is be able to detect that one signal that could potentially serve as the simulated enemy. There is no feedback from the aircraft to the signal transmitters. There's no jamming involved."

The trucks would be surrounded by a taped-off 101-foot perimeter and their activity would not impact people or wildlife, Navy officials say.

Seven of those 15 sites would be in Jefferson County, just north of the Quinault Reservation and 15 miles southeast of Forks. Four would be in Grays Harbor County, while another three would be about 10 miles northeast of Forks in Clallam County.

Communications equipment would be installed at a 16th site at an existing government communications facility on Octopus Mountain in Clallam County, while a tower capable of producing two to 18 gigahertz of electromagnetic radiation would be installed at the Pacific Beach naval station.

PUBLIC INPUT

Since Dean Millett, a ranger at the Forest Service's Pacific Ranger Station in Forks, decided Sept. 26 to reopen the public comment period until Oct. 10, that period has been extended twice more - once until Oct. 31 and again until Nov. 28.

Public meetings in Forks on Oct. 14, Port Angeles on Nov. 6 and Pacific Beach on Nov. 19 have drawn hundreds of people, mostly all of whom oppose the project. Comments made during those meetings were not recorded, thus won't be considered by Forest Service officials.

Prior to reopening that comment period, Millett had already made his decision on Sept. 13 to issue a special-use permit based on receiving no substantial comments during an earlier 30-day comment period that began Aug. 9 when he published a notice of that comment period in Aberdeen's The Daily World.

Some have criticized him for not publishing a notice in other papers in the region, such as the Forks Forum, The Peninsula Daily News or the Port Townsend & Jefferson County Leader, among others.

Millett admits, "Historically, publishing in [news] papers does not get us more comments than we would have gotten anyway."

The only other way members of the public could have heard about the Navy's request to use Forest Service roads for its training projects is if they are on a list of interested persons and organizations that have commented on past proposals, he said.

Karen Sullivan, a retired Washington Fish and Wildlife employee in Port Townsend who helped shape the Democrats' resolution, said she has commented on past proposals and never received word of this one. She also said though she hopes Millett agrees to extend the comment period again, she doubts he will.

"Those 2,500 comments are not insignificant," she said. "If Dean Millet signs this permit, I don't know how he would have been able to review them all."

Navy and Forest Service officials have said to be considered, comments need to substantive. Sullivan said those officials have shied away from defining substantive so she, who has experience reviewing public comments, said she agreed to lead two meet-ups in the past couple weeks to help others write substantive comments.

"We spent 90 percent of the time just talking about issues," she said. "Understanding this process requires a degree of scientific and legal literacy because it has not been made clear by the Navy or the Forest Service. That has made it a real challenge for the public to weigh in on this issue."

Sullivan said she has helped nearly 50 people draft substantive letters, so far. And though she hopes for even more opportunity to for public comment and public education, she said she's mostly appalled at the process to date.

"I know what a public process looks like and this is not it," she said, pointing to what she feels has been a conscious effort to limit public input, which the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) requires. "It is impossible to review thousands of pages of government documents in 15 days in the summer. I believe they have violated the law, at least the spirit and nature of the law. It feels like the government's pulling a fast one."

Sullivan is referring to a point made in the resolution she helped pen, which says the Navy allowed the public 15 days, from Aug. 1 to Aug. 15, to comment on its draft environmental assessment before finding on Aug. 28 no significant impact, partly based on receiving a lack of comments.

Sullivan said effectively soliciting public comment has been made more difficult because the Navy and Forest Service have run separate processes, each taking comments at about the same time on the same environmental assessment, but for their own purposes.

Millett acknowledged the Navy and Forest Service have been operating on "parallel paths."

"The public sees this as one whole entity, the noise, the pollution, the radiation, the Growlers, the emitters, and Navy sees it as a la carte, as separate issues," said Sullivan, adding that many are as concerned about noise from jets as they are electromagnetic radiation. "The public feels they're not being allowed to address their concerns on the whole issue."

When the Navy released its draft environmental assessment in late July, it published notices in The Seattle Times, The Olympian and The Montesano Vidette.

"Whoever is moving this thing along has not been following any kind of established process we've ever seen," said Yount.

The Navy hopes to have the project up and running by September 2015. Millet said he doesn't expect to decide whether to issue a permit until mid-year.

"We've had more comment on this than any other project we've done," he said. "We have 2,500 comments on this and this is not the only project we're working on. There's always a chance that we could get something out sooner, but middle of 2015 would be more likely than March."

"I know what a public process looks like and this is not it."

Karen Sullivan

Port Townsend resident and Jefferson County Democratic Party member