short stories / By Heidi Walters

Naval Gazing

(Jan. 29, 2009)  Yes, yes, there may be a few more bombs bursting in air, or something like that, out there over the big blue sea that flanks our Northwest coastline. More aircraft lobbing sea sparrows or sidewinders at each other, perhaps. Submarines dismantling fake underwater mines. Sonar testing.

But will anyone in Eureka even know it? Will a fisherman plying the waters off the coast of Trinidad be witness to a dogfight or have a geyser suddenly erupt beside him?

Not likely, says Navy spokesperson Sheila Murray from Navy Region Northwest. Certainly, the Navy does propose to increase training activity in its Northwest Training Range Complex (NWTRC) — a vast area covering offshore and inshore areas from the Strait of San Juan de Fuca down to about 50 nautical miles south of Eureka and from the Washington-Oregon-California coastline west out into the ocean about 250 nautical miles. (A nautical, or “sea” mile, is about 1.15 land miles).

A draft Environmental Impact Statement on the proposed training activity increases was released last December, and five public hearings are coming up, including one in Eureka on Feb. 2. The proposed action in the draft EIS would include increasing training exercises, in some parts of the training complex; operating air and surface target services for ships, submarines and aircraft working on their air-to-air missile air-to-surface and surface-to-surface techniques; developing another land-based threat-signal emitter; developing a “small scale underwater training minefield”; and possibly using a “Portable Undersea Tracking Range (PUTR).”

“The reason they’re doing it is to keep up on advances in technology, and to meet new national security challenges,” Murray says. “And the Navy needs realistic environments” in which to train.

It’s doubtful we will notice anything different in our area, she says.

“What do you see now?” she asks. “Chances are people there don’t see anything now, and they probably won’t see any change. And that’s because most of it happens above 10,000 feet.”

Training that currently takes place in the NWTRC includes activity in the air, on land, on the ocean surface and under the ocean surface. The on-land stuff takes place up in Washington. Murray says the area that the Humboldt area falls into doesn’t see much if any underwater or on-water activity, and isn’t likely to. Mostly it’s air activity up our way — P3s taking off from Whidbey Island Naval Station, in Washington, to conduct reconnaissance training, and some aircraft from the Oregon Air National Guard.

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