Saturday, April 26, 2008
Anyone who has taken a boat ride up the James River in Newport News, Va., has likely
encountered the James River Reserve Fleet.
Known locally as the "Ghost Fleet," the fleet
consists of dozens of decommissioned merchant and war
vessels that are part of the larger National Defense
Reserve Fleet. While many of the ships have been towed away for scrap metal and for use as artificial reefs, many still remain.
With the exception of the likely occasional
maintenance crew, the ships sit abandoned and bound to the river's floor by mammoth anchors and rusting chains.
To some, the Ghost Fleet is an eyesore, and to others it's an environmental threat. Others fear that it's a matter of time before one of the ships breaks free of its mooring during a bad hurricane and goes careening down the river, wreaking havoc to other boats and property along the way.
We were reminded last week of the Ghost Fleet when Sen. Marc Basnight, D-Dare, announced that he has ordered a study detailing the cost to build an offshore jet pilot training platform for the U.S. Navy. The platform is Basnight's offshore alternative to the Navy's more preferred land-based
outlying landing field. The Navy already has an OLF in Chesapeake, Va., where F-18 fighter pilots out of Naval Air Station Oceana practice landing on the deck of an aircraft carrier. However, the Navy is looking to build a new OLF elsewhere.
In its search, the Navy has identified sites in Camden and Gates counties, as well as three more in
Virginia, that it will study for further consideration for its new OLF. Residents in both counties, and in Camden's neighboring Currituck County, have openly and enthusiastically expressed their opposition to the Navy's considerations. It's their contention that since the new OLF would be used by Virginia-based pilots, the OLF should be built in Virginia and not in North Carolina.
We understand residents' concerns and certainly agree that the new OLF is a Virginia problem that needs to stay in Virginia. What we don't understand is Basnight's hesitation to come forward with the same opinion.
Rather than taking the stance that a new OLF
belongs in Virginia and not in northeastern North Carolina, Basnight has sought the safer political solution — an OLF that is located in neither state but offshore.
While this may sound like a good idea, the Navy insists that an offshore OLF is just not practical for training pilots inexperienced in carrier-based landings.
Rear Adm. David Anderson, the Navy's point man for the search for a new land-based OLF, told reporters last week that an offshore OLF might be "doable" if it were built with 10,000 feet of runway and be able to rotate 360 degrees to compensate for the sea's changing wind directions. An offshore OLF also would cost billions of dollars and have a significant effect on the environment, Anderson said.
It doesn't take an admiral to convince us that an
offshore OLF is a bad idea.
We are thankful that Basnight is making an effort to keep the practice landing field out of our backyards. But we think a more effective measure would be if he simply told the Navy that the new OLF needs to be built in
Virginia, where it can keep the Ghost Fleet company.
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Comments
By Citizen
Apr 28, 2008 7:28 AM | Link to this
Douglas has made a point. The support activities and base line WOULD create jobs and money would come to the area. For those who feel that there would not be a base, support activities, firefighters, mess hall etc., and just a strip of tarmac, they are surely mistaken.
I too believe the OLF would be a plus for the area.
It seems that most of the opposition is geared towards noise. Not towards the benefit of the surrounding areas.
Or could it be that you feel that your housing valuation would lower due to the proximity?
By Lisa noolf
Apr 27, 2008 8:47 PM | Link to this
Douglas, Iım glad your not an economics major, youıd put us right out of business.
By Say What
Apr 27, 2008 10:57 AM | Link to this
Here's an idea: why don't Camden and Currituck build 2 hugely massive landfills, much larger than the previously planned one, but construct them as 2 parallel lines a couple miles long and several hundred feet tall with the OLF in the center. Much of the noise would then be reflected within and upward with just a little noise escaping as jets enter/exit the 'zone'.
By cece
Apr 27, 2008 9:26 AM | Link to this
Douglas -- wake up. Buckets of money WON'T be pouring into North Carolina via the Navy OLF. The squandrons and the military and civilian billets will not leave Oceana; the only thing proposed to come to NC will be about 50 jobs, likely to be filled with little or no consideration to local hire provisions, and NOISE. Condemnation of acres of farm land all because Virginia prostituted every square foot of land to developers around Oceana and then had the nerve to gripe about the Navy. If the squandrons, ALL the jobs and ALL the federal dollars associated with Oceana are coming to NC, then so be it. But those jobs will need to incorporate local hire requirements first, not last. But that isn't the way the Navy and Virginia want this to work; they want to keep the best parts and sluff the "leavings" onto someone else.
By Douglas
Apr 26, 2008 5:39 PM | Link to this
WOW... I can't believe the opposition to the proposal of an OLF in NC.
I really can't.
I'm no economic major, but when a part of the country is one of the poorest [NENC], one would think that the powers that be would be happy to have ANY military base locate to that area.
The economic boom would be tremendous.
The planning, construction, the support activities etc.
Money would be coming to the area by the buckets.
Jobs, jobs and more jobs.
And consider the tax base in the mega-millions.
Yeah...we would also have jets flying overhead.
But I would rather they be ours than theirs.
And what about the protection aspect?
Imagine another [more dastardly] terrorist attack.
We already have Blackwater in our back yard to cover our collective butts in case of a ground attack.
Wouldn't it also be a good thing to keep our friendly skies...friendly?
Think people...think.
By Carolyn R
Apr 26, 2008 11:18 AM | Link to this
I am so delighted to see TDA take the position that Senator Basnight should not encourage a floating OLF. While I don't oppose a NC OLF, I understand there are those who do have their reasons for opposing one and I believe in most cases they are sincere. I can respect that. Whether it is fair or unfair for NC and VA is an oppinion but an offshore OLF is unfair to the pilots and that is a FACT.
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