No Oral Comments Allowed by Navy on Ediz Hook Draft EA
by Connie Gallant, Board President
As part of yet another draft environmental assessment (DEA), the Navy has proposed to build a pier on Ediz Hook for the purpose of mooring vessels designed to escort submarines from Hood Canal to the Pacific Ocean. Screening and escorting submarines from those areas will be vessels ranging in size from 33 to 250 feet long.
The DEA consists of a whopping 224 pages and is available here for your reading pleasure. The public library in Port Angeles, located at 2210 S. Peabody St., will have a printed copy for reviewing.
There will be a public meeting held on January 12 from 6–8 PM in the Elks Naval Lodge, located at 131 E. First Street in Port Angeles. Officials will present information and answer questions, but will only accept written comments. Sounds like this will be the only public hearing for the entire Peninsula’s residents to attend.
Written comments also may be emailed to NWNEPA@navy.mil or sent to: Commanding Officer, Naval Facilities, Engineering Command Northwest, Attn: NEPA Project Manager/TPS Facilities, 1101 Tautog Circle, Room 203, Silverdale, WA 98315-1104 through January 28.
According to the Navy assessment, “The primary environmental impact would be to birds who would avoid the area during construction.” We can only hope the birds can figure it out.
The assessment further states that, “Construction would increase water turbidity, and the pier would degrade eelgrass beds by shading 25,465 square feet of water.” Thus, it will be interesting to see if the Navy, once again, determines on its very own that this bears “no significant impact.” It would not surprise us.
It is obvious that the Navy does not want a repeat episode similar to the Port Angeles meeting when the issue of electromagnetic radar trucks on Forest Service roads was presented without allowing any comments. The public in attendance did not like it at all and let the Navy know it, in very loud and clear terms. So far, the lack of transparency about all of the segmented proposals presented by the Navy is very troubling to us. Why? Because we are seeing a pattern of not following process and trying to circumvent the National Environmental Policy Act.