CURRITUCK — Camden and Currituck officials have committed $250,000 in taxpayer funds to block the U.S. Navy's efforts to study the Hales Lake area of Camden for a jet training airfield.

However, the funds will only be used to stop the Navy's consideration of Hales Lake for the outlying landing field, Currituck County Manager Dan Scanlon said. The funds will not be used to stop a similar study of a potential OLF site in Gates County, Scanlon said.

Gates County officials have informed both Camden and Currituck that their county lacks the resources to help pay for a public relations firm and attorney and engineering fees to fight the OLF study, he said. As a result, Currituck will pay half the cost — $125,000 — of those expenses and Camden will pay the other half, he said.

Scanlon said Camden has already hired the Raleigh-based law firm, Poyner & Spruill, and the public relations firm, French West Vaughan, to represent the two counties in their OLF fight. Officials have not chosen an engineering firm to study the airfield's potential environmental impact on the area.

The private firms are expected to build a case proving officials and residents' contention that an OLF would have a devastating effect on Camden and Currituck's economy, environment, livability, culture and tax base.

Scanlon presented an inter-local agreement, written by Camden County attorney John Morrison, which details the two counties' responsibilities in their joint fight to block the OLF. The pact requires the counties to "combine their resources, political, economic and otherwise to resist the location of an OLF in Camden County."

Camden officials have already incurred $42,000 in legal and advertising costs fighting the OLF. As part of the agreement, Currituck will reimburse Camden half that cost, or $21,000.

Scanlon warned that the $250,000 is just an estimate of what it will cost the counties to fight the OLF over the next three years. He pointed out, however, that Washington County spent close to $1 million before the Navy dropped its preferred site for the OLF there.

Commissioner Ernie Bowden said county officials need to keep on the costs of the OLF fight.

"I certainly am opposed to an OLF anywhere in northeastern North Carolina, but I do not want this funding to get out of hand either," he said.

Bowden instructed Scanlon to require progress reports from each of the firms working on the OLF project, and to monitor how the funds are being used.

Scanlon said both counties will receive monthly reports on the project's progress. He also told commissioners that, under the agreement, they can terminate the pact any time, with a public vote, they feel progress isn't being made.

The agreement also calls on both counties to solicit financial contributions from other concerned local governments, as well as grants, donations and other forms of assistance.

Scanlon said he believes Gates County plans to seek a public referendum in November asking voters if they want some of their tax money used to fight the OLF.

The Sandbanks site in Gates and the Hales Lake site are the only two locations in North Carolina the Navy plans to study for the OLF, which will serve as a training field for jet pilots based at Naval Air Station Oceana in Virginia Beach, Va. The other three sites are in southeastern Virginia.