By Staff
Alligood says to readyfor upcoming hearings
By DAN PARSONS
Staff Writer
Fresh out of fields, farms, and families — members of North Carolinians Opposed to the Outlying Landing Field — gathered in a barn near the Washington County-Beaufort County line to rally their spirits as time runs out before the upcoming OLF hearings in these counties.
The gathering was one of many for the group that has been fighting — for years — the Navy’s plan to put an outlying landing field on its preferred Site C — about 30,000 acres in southeastern Washington County. Much of the debate over that site has hovered around it being less than five miles from the Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge, a wintering spot for hundreds of thousands of waterfowl.
But, Alligood said, with the home-based public hearings looming, “This is the time to put a face to this issue … to show the Navy how it will affect our American farmers.”
At least three people in attendance were able to put faces on the effects of Navy jets on the human environment.
Johnson’s wife, Antje, added that she did not understand how anyone could raise children in such an environment.
Katherine Holm lived in Virginia Beach, Va., for 40 years, teaching school “right on the runway at Oceana.”
Documentarian Tex Fuller, who produced a half-hour film about the group’s struggle against the Navy, was on hand to again offer his services. Living in eastern North Carolina, Fuller said he is working on a documentary about missiles. That film requires trips to Washington, D.C., which would make it “easy to accommodate extra filming for another, longer film about the OLF,” Fuller said.
With more and more elected officials siding against the Navy in its endeavor, attendance at the upcoming public hearings was stressed by every speaker at the gathering.
Pulled quote: ‘The political animals are just now recognizing this as an issue and are belatedly wanting to come on board.’
Tex Fuller,
who made a documentary about the effects of an OLF at Site C