7/21/2010 - Navy Training Field Extensions for Baldwin County
BAY MINETTE AL - U.S. Navy Whiting Field spokesman Jay Cope announced during Tuesday's County Commission meeting the recent decision to go forward with the runway project that stalled in February. Cost estimates to purchase land around the southeast Baldwin airfields were higher than expected.
Cope said studies on environmental, historical and noise impact of the expansions are ongoing and will be used in making the decision on which two Baldwin training facilities will get between 500 and 1,500 additional feet of runway.
The final plan is due sometime this month and will include the Navy's preference for airstrips, Cope said, as well as the plan to purchase property around the expansion areas. Cope encouraged residents near the outlying training fields in Silverhill, Summerdale and Barin in Foley to review information and post commentary at a publicly accessible website, www.navyolfextensions.com/index.html . Once the plan is posted there, he said, the public has 30 days to review and comment.
Cope said Whiting Field with its eight outlying airstrips hosts training for about 60 percent of all Navy and Marine pilots as well as for aviators from the Coast Guard, Air Force and some students from allied nations. Six of those outlying fields are in southwest Alabama, four in Baldwin.
The Navy announced plans last year to replace its aging fleet of training planes, switching to T-6B Texan aircraft and phasing out the 1977 T-34C Turbo Mentor planes by 2015. Cope said the new planes fly faster, higher and farther, more closely resembling the flight characteristics of fighter jets, but they also need longer runways and larger obstruction-free safety zones around landing zones.
Some county residents protested the planned expansions, citing concerns about noise from the aircraft as well as intrusions into residential communities. Depending on which expansion plan the Navy chooses, officials said, the military will have to buy and remove between five and 23 structures, purchase between 12 and 43 acres, acquire land rights to hundreds more acres and move roads both private and public.
"We consider each comment carefully and are truly concerned about minimizing the affect this project will have on the local community," Thomas Currin, environmental assessment planner for the project, said in a news release. "However, this project is necessary to support the current and future flight training mission in Northwest Florida."
Last summer Whiting Field officials determined that the cost of expanding would exceed $1 million and would require approval by high-ranking officers in the Navy. Navy officials removed Wolf Field from consideration due to space limitations in Lillian caused by its proximity to Pensacola Regional Airport and Naval Air Station Pensacola. -Staff Report FMI:
Navy Training Field Extensions by Connie Baggett
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