SEQUIM — A Blyn-area couple said they thought they had been targeted by the Navy for complaining too frequently about noise generated by EA-18G Growler aircraft flying over their home, something the Navy vehemently denies.
“I am really concerned,” Doug Goldie said during the call to the public portion of Monday’s City Council meeting.
“Over a 25-day period, we made 33 calls” to the noise complaint hotline at 360-257-6665.
And “after a few calls, we were then just blanketed with Growlers coming over — multiple Growlers — some as late as 11:30 p.m.,” he said.
He said later that no jets had flown over his house in the past two weeks.
Before then, he said, they flew “right over the house at 3,000 to 5,000 feet” and the noise was so loud they couldn’t carry on a conversation.
He and his wife, Bev, “began to get the impression that [we] were being targeted because we were calling in,” he said.
Not targeting anyone
The Navy has not targeted the Goldies or anyone else who has used the hotline, said Mike Welding, public information officer for Naval Air Station Whidbey Island, where the Growlers are based.
“We just would not do that. The planes are flying on predetermined paths, [and] those flights are based upon training needs, not on what somebody feels the Navy may be doing.”
When people call the base hotline, “if we see that something seems a little strange — not a typical routine and not just somebody calling all the time to complain — we are going to look at that and see if the planes might have gotten out of the pattern or something of that nature,” Welding said.
The pilots would be informed of such complaints, but not where they originated from, he said.
“The pilot might know that people complained, but they would not have any idea where an individual lives,” he said.
Flights have stopped
Goldie said the flights over his home have stopped over the past two weeks.
“There hasn’t been one Growler fly over our house. I see them to the south, to the west, to the east,” he said.
Despite the apparent change, “I do want to bring this to the attention of the City Council,” he said.
“This is a real concern, and we don’t know why they were suddenly coming right over our house. It is so extremely loud and disturbing.”
In response, Mayor Candace Pratt said, “It is disturbing, and I think there are some on Whidbey [Island] that feel also they have been targeted for complaining.”
Whidbey Island residents have said the jet noise is causing depression, anxiety, insomnia, elevated blood pressure, anger and hearing loss.
A group of residents sought an injunction to stop the fighter jets from practicing aircraft-carrier landings at the base. A federal judge denied the request in August.
On Aug. 21, Pratt, council members Dennis Smith and Genaveve Starr, and various city staffers attended a tour of Naval Air Station Whidbey Island.
The trip was a fact-finding mission by the city to determine how the Growlers affect Sequim-area residents, said City Manager Charlie Bush.
The trip cost a total of $128.15, according to Karen K. Kuznek-Reese, city clerk.
Councilman Ken Hays, who did not attend the tour, made clear his dissatisfaction with the Navy on the Growler issue, noting he has experienced “close fly-bys” above his home in the east end of Sequim in the past.
“I think the Navy has been persistently dishonest with the public on this issue,” he said.
“They are not being very honest with us about their flight patterns, their flyovers, their time of the day [and] of the week. I think we need to continue to press them.”
Navy ‘straightforward’
Welding said the Navy has in fact been straightforward with the public about the issue.
“The Navy has been very forthright and honest about what it is doing regarding the Growler and the Navy’s position to want to buy more Growlers. We have also told people exactly what we are doing over at the Olympic Peninsula and the training ranges,” he said.
The Goldies also said they are concerned that if an $11.5 million expansion of electronic-warfare-range activities on the Olympic Peninsula sought by the Navy is approved, the Growler flights — and accompanying noise — will increase.
Permit sought
The Navy has requested a permit from the U.S. Forest Service to deploy three mobile, camper-sized electromagnetic transmitters on 12 Olympic National Forest logging roads in Clallam and Jefferson counties and Grays Harbor County.
The crews would target electromagnetic radiation from emitters affixed to up to three camper-sized vehicles that would move from site to site.
A U.S. Forest Service decision on a Navy request for a permit is expected in early 2016, agency spokesman Glen Sachet has said.
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley Editor Chris McDaniel can be reached at 360-681-2390, ext. 5052, or cmcdaniel@peninsuladailynews.com.
