Yesterday a couple hundred of local residents came together in a local barn to map out a strategy to reduce the noise from the Navy’s F-18 Howler Jets by pushing for the training flights to be moved to a more suitable location, instead of turning central Whidbey Island into a sacrifice zone. The meeting was organized by the Sound Defense Alliance.
For the last couple of months we’ve been impacted by the Navy’s jets flying over my neighborhood at treetop altitudes on an almost constant basis. This increase in the the Navy’s F- 18 Howler flights has been alarming, and inescapable.
One speaker related how he had just spent $20,000 on soundproofing his home and when he was done the sound levels in his living room were in still the upper 80s decibel range. If this were a civilian airport the government would pay for soundproofing our homes, but the military is allowed to be completely irresponsible when it comes to providing funding to mitigate military noise pollution. The Navy doesn’t care because they don’t have to.
We learned congressman Derek Kilmer of Washington's 6th District introduced an amendment to the Defense Appropriations bill to fund mitigation measures like soundproofing for our homes.
When one speaker asked for everyone who’s work was negatively impacted by the jet noise to stand up dozens did. When asked for everyone who’s sleep or their kids sleep was disrupted by jet noise, dosens stood up. When asked for everyone who wants to move but are afraid they won’t be able to sell their homes a surprising number stood up.
The Navy has never done any real noise monitoring on Whidbey Island, and getting real noise monitoring in place is one of our top priorities.
The Navy has started the process of turning central Whidbey Island into a military sacrifice zone.
But we Whidbey islanders aren’t sitting still for this travesty. We will do everything in our power to halt the Navy’s destruction of a scenic gem of an Island that is our home.