VICTORIA — Noise from the Navy’s EA-18G “Growler” practice flights out of Whidbey Island Naval Air Station are stirring grumbles from southern Vancouver Island, according to reports out of Victoria.
Although the noise has been intermittent since the Growlers — electronic-warfare aircraft based on Whidbey Island — arrived in 2008, they particularly stirred complaint last Tuesday night from the east side of Vancouver Island’s Saanch Peninsula and the southern Gulf Islands across the border from the U.S.’s San Juan Islands.
Colin Newell, a ham radio operator in Saanich, told the Victoria Times Colonist that last Tuesday’s noise was caused by “temperature variations, humidity, atmospheric pollution and winds that can have an effect on how a subsonic shock wave or acoustic disturbance is perceived on the ground.”
The Times Colonist described the rumbles as “mysterious, intermittent low murmurs lasting up to 30 seconds.”
They occurred one night after the Port Townsend City Council voted to draft a letter to the Navy, which proposes to add 36 Growlers to the 82 currently based at Whidbey Island Naval Air Station.
The Navy is preparing an environmental impact statement on the additional planes and was taking public comment until Friday.
Separate comments
Separately, public comments are still being accepted by the U.S. Forest Service over the Navy’s plan to conduct electronic warfare training with the Growlers on the West End of the Olympic Peninsula. The comment period for a special-use permit for use of Forest Service roads officially closed Nov. 28.
Last Monday, Port Townsend council members said their letter to the Navy will mention that the separate comment periods are confusing to the public and that the Growlers at Whidbey and the West End electronic warfare testing should be combined in one environmental assessment, Mayor David King said.
Information on the Growler plan is available at www.whidbeyeis.com.
Comment period
The Forest Service said at http://tinyurl.com/PDN-Electrowarfare that it will accept comments at any time on the special-use permit for the proposed electronic warfare testing but that those received after the deadline “may not be able to be given full consideration” in the decision expected by the middle of this year at the earliest.
Comments can be submitted to Gregory Wahl, Olympic National Forest All Units, 437 Tillicum Lane, Forks, WA 98331, or emailed to gtwahl@fs.fed.us.