The U.S. Navy hopes to begin using Olympic National Forest roads for its enhanced electronic-warfare training as soon as it gets permission from the U.S. Forest Service, which is now expected in January 2016.

Navy officials originally planned to begin that training, which requires a Forest Service permit, in September.

The Forest Service has pushed that target back after receiving thousands of public comments during an extended comment period in fall 2014 on the Navy's environmental assessment, which found the use of forest roads would have no significant impact on the natural environment or human communities.

The Navy has conducted electronic-warfare training above the Olympic Peninsula for nearly 40 years, said Navy spokesperson Liane Nakahara.

The current plan would enhance that training - which teaches EA-18G Growler pilots to detect enemy electronic signals - by sending utility trucks outfitted with mobile emitters of electromagnetic radiation to any of 12 sites along forest roads in the national forest.

Doing so over the Olympic Peninsula would also save aircraft crews a 400-mile trip to Idaho, Nakahara said.

Though it doesn't expect to get the go-ahead from the Forest Service until early 2016, Nakahara said the Navy should have its mobile emitters assembled this fall while construction of a fixed emitter at Naval Station Everett Annex Pacific Beach is expected by early 2016.

"We estimate being able to provide limited improvements to the electronic warfare training with some of the equipment and personnel in place, by the end of October," Nakahara said. "Until decisions are reached on special use permits from the U.S. Forest Service, the mobile transmitter vehicles could only be used on Navy property."

As public awareness of the Navy's proposal grew in September 2014, Dean Millett, the Forest Service ranger responsible for deciding whether to allow the Navy's use of the roads, elected to extend a public comment period, which garnered 2,968 comments, with hundreds more coming in since the deadline.

In June, the Forest Service contracted with SWCA Environmental Consultants in Portland, Oregon to analyze the comments.

Glen Sachet, Forest Service regional issues manager for the Pacific Northwest, said his office in Portland received a 125-page draft analysis of the comments from the consultant earlier this month and is now finalizing it for public release by the end of this month.

A finalized analysis would be posted online for public review at l.usa.gov/lqo5sxa, where other project documents have been posted, as well as public comments.

That analysis does not respond to comments; rather it synthesizes them into 180 common themes, such as wildlife concerns and recreation concerns. The Forest Service and the Navy then plan to divvy up those common themes and develop responses, Sachet said.

"We take public comments very seriously and we are taking the time to do it right," Sachet said. "We want to give people the credit and honor they deserve in responding to us by responding to them."

Millett is expected to issue his draft decision in September. Sachet said that decision would be accompanied by an appendix of comments, common themes and official responses. He also said the comments could cause the Forest Service to impose mitigation conditions on the Navy's permit.

Once Millett issues his draft decision, a 45-day objection period begins, during which those who submitted substantial comments last fall have a chance to object.

"When you add all that up, it pushes a final resolution into January 2016, potentially," Sachet said. "There's still a lot of work to do."

Upon approaching the peninsula from the Pacific Ocean, fighter jet pilots in training would try to detect, identify and locate electronic signals coming from utility trucks parked along forest roads and outfitted with mobile emitters.

The trucks would be surrounded by a taped-off, 101-foot perimeter and use 14-foot antennas to emit radiation straight up into the sky.

The $11.5 million training project would be the Navy's first use of mobile emitters of electromagnetic radiation for training that pilots currently simulate with internal aircraft controls.

The Navy originally planned to park its mobile emitters along any of 15 forest roads, three of which are governed by the state Department of Natural Resources (DNR).

In a Feb. 27 letter to the Navy, DNR Commissioner of Public Lands Peter Goldmark announced his agency would not allow the Navy to use its forest roads, all three of which are located within Jefferson County.

Four others, all governed by the Forest Service, are also within Jefferson County. The rest are scattered within Clallam and Grays Harbor counties.

The Navy now plans to send its emitters from Naval Station Everett Annex Pacific Beach to sites along any of the Forest Service's 12 roads.

The jets would then depart Naval Air Station Whidbey Island for the Olympic Peninsula's west end to practice detecting those radio signals for as many as 16 hours a day, 260 days each year.