PORT ANGELES — One military staffer was available for every three participants at an open house Tuesday evening on Navy plans to build a submarine-escort-vessel pier and support buildings on popular Ediz Hook.
Some 25 Navy and Coast Guard personnel staffed the open house Tuesday evening in Port Angeles, which drew between 70 and 75 people.
“The first thing I thought of was, why did they need like 30 people?” Jane Vanderhoof said Wednesday.
“The Navy was totally controlling the flow of things.
“Taxpayers’ money was going to these guys sitting around trying to talk us into something.”
Leanne Johnson of Port Angeles said at the open house that she was concerned about access to Ediz Hook for her and her son and impediments to rowers and kayakers who would have to skirt a buffer zone around the facilities.
Her concerns were addressed “for the most part,” she said.
“I think they’re working on it. I think they are.”
In the Navy’s preferred alternative for the project, the dock and related facilities — part of the Navy’s Transit Protection System for ballistic-missile submarines — would be a quarter-mile inside the entrance gate to Coast Guard Air Station/Sector Field Office Port Angeles.
Up to seven escort vessels — some up to 250 feet — would dock on the south face of the Hook with buildings that would house sleeping quarters for 20 to 30 people.
There also would be an armory and a 10,000-gallon fuel storage tank.
Congress has approved $20.6 million for the 2016 fiscal year for the project, which has an estimated cost of $27 million.
Navy officials said concerns about environmentally sensitive eelgrass and an artificial rock-pile reef popular among divers have been addressed by a proposal to move the dock away from those areas.
Silvia Klatman, public affairs officer for Naval Base Kitsap, said Wednesday in an email that 25 subject-matter and public affairs officers were on hand Tuesday to assist with the event and answer questions — but not to give a presentation or respond to comments in a group-meeting format.
Staff members stood by information placards mounted on five display easels that reiterated information contained in a favorable no-significant-impact environmental assessment on which the Navy was the lead agency.
Some residents felt somewhat smothered by the military entourage in the Elks Naval Lodge meeting room.
“This gathering was well planned, orchestrated and carefully staffed with folks with outstanding people skills!” Port Angeles resident Sylvia Meyer said Wednesday in an email.
“Greeters downstairs, elevator helpers, orienteers, facilitators facilitating facilitation — good grief.”
Julia Cochrane, Nancy Botta and Juliet Parfrey of Port Townsend said they were not happy with the format as they sat at a table at the open house.
Cochrane was filling out a public meeting comment form.
“I’d rather have a hearing where we get to hear each other,” she said.
For Botta, “these kind of scoping meetings are pretty much useless as far as the public getting answers to questions,” she said.
The Navy, she added, is “fearful of getting their feet held to the fire.”
The preferred alternative is one of four the Navy is considering for use by escort vessel crews, all in the vicinity of or on the grounds of the Coast Guard station.
They now sleep their ships or in refurbished shipping containers at the Coast Guard station, Coast Guard Cmdr. Michael Schoonover said at the meeting.
One alternative is to take no action, while the other two are more expensive than the preferred alternative.
The comment deadline on the assessment ends Jan. 28.
The report is available at http://tinyurl.com/PDN-Hookpier.
Written comments can be submitted to Commanding Officer, NAVFAC NW, Attn: NEPA PM, 1101 Tautog Circle, Silverdale, WA 98315-1101, or emailed to NWNEPA@navy.mil.
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5060, or at pgottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
