PORT ANGELES — U.S. Rep. Derek Kilmer told an auditorium full of angry constituents he’ll be a willing conduit for their concerns over the Navy’s electronic warfare range.
“I get the concern that people have raised,” he told about 200 restive listeners in Peninsula College’s Little Theater in Port Angeles on Friday during a town hall meeting for Clallam residents.
At the outset of his presentation, the Gig Harbor Democrat who represents the 6th Congressional District invited protesters — more than a dozen of whom greeted him with posters at the building’s entrance — to hold up their signs.
But when he repeated his assertion made last Friday at a town hall meeting in Port Townsend that North Olympic Peninsula residents and the Navy are neighbors, several yelled, “No, we’re not.”
When one woman shouted, “They’re the military-industrial complex,” Kilmer retorted, “If this is going to turn into ‘The Jerry Springer Show,’ this isn’t going to be a long meeting.”
Still, Kilmer stayed on stage past his planned 90 minutes, promising to take constituents’ concerns both to the Navy and to other federal agencies that will weigh in on the proposal. They include the U.S. Forest Service and the Fish and Wildlife Service.
“I’m more than willing to be a conduit” for objections, he said, and urged people to submit their comments on the supplement to the Northwest Training and Testing Range draft environmental impact statement. The public comment period closes Feb. 2.
Kilmer also pledged to try to amend the National Defense Authorization Act to “put some congressional force” behind the military’s promises, such as not to fly its EA-18G Growler jets below 10,000 feet and to avoid as much disturbance as possible to the wilderness and its wildlife.
To train pilots in electronic warfare, the Navy is seeking a Forest Service special-use permit to allow access to 15 logging-road sites in Olympic National Forest.
The Navy plans to disperse on the roads three camper-sized Navy vehicles with emitters. A fourth emitter would be at a fixed site at the Navy base at Pacific Beach.
The trucks, equipped with antennas mounted 14 feet off the ground, would emit electromagnetic radiation as part of simulated targeting exercises performed by Whidbey Naval Air Station pilots trying to locate the emitters’ electronic signatures.
The comment period for the special-use permit for use of Forest Service roads closed Nov. 28. A decision is expected by the middle of this year at the earliest.
A separate proposal to add up to 36 Growlers to the 82 currently based at Naval Air Station Whidbey Island is also in process.
The comment period for the Growler draft environmental impact statement closed Jan. 9.
Members of Kilmer’s audience — none of whom spoke in favor of the Navy — said its environmental assessments were inadequate.
The Congressman agreed with criticism of the Navy’s process, calling it “a very poor job of public engagement.”
In Port Townsend, he had said he believed the Navy “did not do an adequate job of communicating, particularly about the electronic warfare.”
However, he said he was unwilling to involve himself directly in the environmental fact-finding under the National Environmental Policy Act.
“It’s a little dangerous to ask legislative officials to put their thumbs on the scale of the regulatory process,” he said.
Information on the supplement to the Northwest Training and Testing draft environmental impact statement — which concerns use of sonar and explosives — is at http://tinyurl.com/PDN-supplementnavytraining.
Written comments on the supplement can be submitted via the project website or by mail to Naval Facilities Engineering Command Northwest, Attn: Ms. Kimberly Kler — NWTT EIS/OEIS Project Manager, 1101 Tautog Circle, Suite 203, Silverdale, WA 98315-1101.
On other matters, Kilmer said he’ll oppose President Barack Obama’s proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership treaty if it doesn’t include protections for labor, the environment and consumers.
He’d support the pact “if it helps us export our products, not our jobs,” but “if they get it wrong, I’m going to vote against it.”
Kilmer also called for “standing up” for the Olympic Peninsula Collaborative of foresters and environmentalists he formed in 2013 to increase taxable timber yields and for renewing the Secure Rural Schools Act that funneled dollars into counties with large tracts of federal forests. Payments dwindled in recent years until they disappeared in 2014.
About half of his appearance was a PowerPoint presentation on his legislative agenda of meeting budget challenges, growing the economy and repairing partisan rifts in Congress, which he called “a fixer-upper” of an institution.
Kilmer’s meetings in Port Angeles and Port Townsend were among those in six counties conducted in 10 days.
His listeners applauded his willingness to conduct the Port Angeles meeting — the fifth of six in his district — especially, as one woman put it, “after Port Townsend,” where Kilmer also encountered strong anti-Navy sentiment.
But the loudest ovation of the session greeted one woman’s assertion that the Navy had not made a sufficient case for electronic warfare training.
“They fail to identify any threats,” she said. “The threat for us is the Navy.”
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Reporter James Casey can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5074, or at jcasey@peninsuladailynews.com.