QUILCENE — East Jefferson County residents told Navy officials at a public hearing that they worried that an expanded undersea warfare test range in Hood Canal would result in less recreational and commercial water access.
“My concern is that this range expansion proposal may limit recreational opportunities on the waters,” said Don Coleman, owner of Brinnon-based Pacific Adventures scuba diving who also works at Pleasant Harbor Marina.
Coleman said Navy officials have told him not to enter Quilcene Bay when the range was active.
“I am fully against expansion,” he said.
Coleman was one of four who commented Tuesday night before Capt. Stephen E. Iwanowicz, commander of the Keyport Naval Undersea Warfare Center during a public hearing that was part of the procedure for the Navy’s environmental impact statements for expansion of its submarine test ranges.
Under the proposal, three test ranges would be expanded, and two of the three ranges would have a slight increase in the number of days per year that they are used by the Navy.
The current ranges, identified on nautical charts, are located on Hood Canal in Dabob Bay and between Toandos Peninsula and Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor; and on the coast of Washington state near Kalaloch; and in the Port Orchard Reach near Keyport.
As proposed:
âñ The Dabob Bay Range Complex on Hood Canal — comprised of the north and south military operating areas near Naval Base Kitsap Bangor and the area in Dabob Bay — would increase from about 32.7 square nautical miles to 45.7 square nautical miles, and the number of days used per year would remain the same, at 200.
The proposed extension from the southern boundary of the current range to the mouth of the Hamma Hamma River, and from the northern boundary of the current range to within one nautical mile of the Hood Canal Floating Bridge, would afford a straight run of approximately 27.5 nautical miles for testing.
ç The Quinault Underwater Tracking Range between Pacific Beach in Grays Harbor County and Kalaloch in West Jefferson County, would increase from about 48 square nautical miles to 1,840 under the preferred alternative to the full size of a current military air space on nautical charts.
The proposed extension is beyond 12 nautical miles from shore.
The average annual number of days of use for offshore activities would increase two days, from 14 to 16 days per year.
ç The Keyport range site would increase from 1.7 square miles to 3.7 square miles, and the average use would increase by five days, to 60 days per year.
Written comments on the draft statements will be accepted through Oct. 27.
Economic impact
Lifetime Quilcene resident Herb Beck told Iwanowicz and other Navy officials at the hearing that he’s concerned about the economic impact of expanded ranges limiting boat access into the Dabob and Quilcene bays.
He’s not against the range, Beck said. He remembers it opening in 1948 when he was a high school student who was paid up to $250 to collect torpedoes he and his friends found on the shore.
“I would like to see a limit to range activity,” Beck said, proposing that the Navy use the range four days a week and leave Friday, Saturday and Sunday to private boaters.
“It’s a two-way street.”
He asked that the environmental impact statement also include the economic impact on the communities near the test ranges.
The proposal would enable the undersea warfare center “to continue fulfilling its mission of providing test and evaluation services and expertise to support the Navy’s evolving manned and unmanned undersea vehicle program,” the Navy said.
Since 1914, the Keyport base has provided facilities and capabilities to support testing of torpedoes — which are unarmed and with no explosives — other unmanned vehicles, submarine readiness, diver training and similar activities critical to Navy undersea warfare, Iwanowicz said.
Surf zone
The Quinault coastal proposal includes a 7.8 square nautical miles of surf zone area at Pacific Beach, a shoreline owned and maintained for recreational use by the Navy.
It would include a surf zone stretch of about a mile of beach south of Kalaloch, inside the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary.
The dramatic increase in size of the coastal test range is because it is already “an established charted area,” said Carl Hasselman, a Navy environmental policy representative who was one of several on hand at information stations inside the Quilcene School multipurpose room.
The average annual use of the surf zone area would be about 30 days per year.
The proposal would cover hand-held to torpedo-size unmanned underwater vehicles, the latest in under-water warfare technology.
They include air or surface launches, underwater tracking signals form sensors via radio-linked buoys, unmanned kayaks, even “surf crawlers,” unmanned vehicles that can be launched at sea, tumble through the surf to the beach and crawl up onto the shore to relay environmental data back to a ship.
Remote operating vehicles or Navy divers are also used to recover unmanned vehicles lost at sea.
“We have all the infrastructure in place to test vehicles,” said Diane Jennings, Naval Undersea Warfare Center public information officer.
Effect on wildlife
Shari Unger, project manager for the environmental impact statement said the draft study found that California sealions and harbor seals could be temporarily affected by testing vehicles they come in contact with.
She said, however, that she expected that to be the extent of wildlife or endangered species interference caused by noise or confrontation.
There would be no impact to seabirds during testing, Unger said.
The Navy is consulting with federal fish and wildlife officials to ensure that marine fish and wildlife impact is minimal, she said.
The proposal includes a third range in the Port Orchard Reach near Keyport.
Preparation of the environmental impact study began in 2003 with four public scoping meetings in Kit-sap, Mason, Jefferson, and Grays Harbor counties.
Each range has diverse characteristics of depth, bottom type, and sea state.
Public access through these extended range areas will remain open, Navy officials said.
There should be little inconvenience, if any, to the public in these areas, they said.
The operation of the range in Dabob Bay remains the same, where lights continue to be posted at key points on the shore line to inform boaters of Navy range activities.
The underwater warfare center works with the Coast Guard in the issuance of notices to mariners to notify boaters of the Navy’s testing activities if navigational hazards will be presented.
The draft environmental impact statement for the NAVSEA NUWC Keyport Range Complex is posted at http:/www-keyport.kpt.nuwc.navy.mil.
Written comments will be taken during the public hearings; if mailed, they must be postmarked no later than Oct. 27.
Comments are to be addressed to Kimberly Kler (EIS/OEIS project manager), Naval Facilities Command, 1101 Tautog Circle, Suite 203, Silverdale, WA 98315-1101, or faxed to her at 360-396-0857.
A final environmental impact statement, ready for publishing in the Federal Register, should be completed by September 2009, Navy officials said.
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Port Townsend-Jefferson County Editor Jeff Chew can be reached at 360-385-2335 or at jeff.chew@peninsuladailynews.com.
