FARMINGTON – The Massachusetts Air National Guard’s formal proposal to the Federal Aviation Administration seeking approval to lower its jet training flight floor from the current elevation of 7,000 feet to 500 feet above the ground over much of western Maine is five months away, an officer said on Wednesday.
Capt. Matthew Mutti, an executive wing staff officer with the 104th Fighter Wing at Barnes Air National Guard Base in Westfield, Mass., said the environmental assessment developed over the past few years to support the lower altitude training missions for its F-15 and F-16 jets in the Condor 1 and Condor 2 military operations areas over the Franklin, Oxford and Somerset counties of western Maine and a portion of southern New Hampshire, will be delayed by a few months.
“We’re still working on finalizing the EA,” Mutti said of the draft’s delay. He added they are in negotiations with Maine Gov. John Baldacci and the FAA to complete the assessment, “but the governor wants an environmental impact study to be completed.” The FAA has the ultimate authority over U.S. airspace and would determine if the proposal should be approved or an impact study be required. The impact study Gov. Baldacci, along with Maine’s Congressional delegation, are seeking is similar to the assessment that has already been produced, but is far more in depth, expensive and time-consuming to complete.
“We argue that we don’t need it (an impact study) because the Condor airspace has been operating there for so long,” Mutti said. “It was established 30 years ago – a long time ago – for both high and low altitude training. The (environmental) impact won’t change.”
Currently, pilots must stay 7,000 feet above the earth throughout much of the military operations areas. The exception is the so-called “flight corridors,” which make up roughly 53 percent of the area. In these flight corridors, F-15 and F-16 jets are allowed to fly as low as 500 feet off the ground. These corridors are one way only and pilots are not allowed to conduct interception-related maneuvers within those corridors.
The Air National Guard’s proposal is to do away with the one-way flight corridor system and lower the minimum altitude requirement to 500 feet throughout Maine’s military operations area so they can perform low altitude interception training missions.
According to Massachusetts Air National Guard Gen. L. Scott Rice at the last public meeting on Dec. 2 in Farmington, “We have found out that [low-altitude interception training] has been a weakness of the U.S. military.” He went on to say that much of the existing technology and training focuses on plane-to-plane combat and not engaging low flying targets such as small, personal aircraft or cruise missiles.
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Gen. L. Scott Rice of the Massachusetts Air National Guard answers questions at the Dec. 2 public information meeting in Farmington. |
The guard says that its pilots will be in low-altitude flight for 10 minutes, time enough for a pilot to see the training mission’s airborne target, fly down to a minimum of 500 feet and simulate an engagement. Rice noted that training missions at low altitudes, within the flight corridors, currently last 30 minutes.
In a letter addressed to the Federal Aviation Administration in July, Baldacci noted that his administration “serious concerns” with the plan. “As Governor of the State affected by this proposal, I request that an Environmental Impact Statement be developed,” he wrote. “I base my conclusion on the lack of adequate review of the alternatives and the significant public controversy that exists in Maine.”
Five public information meetings in the three Maine counties affected have been held by the Air National Guard since last spring when the environmental assessment draft was completed. A meeting held on July 11 in Farmington was attended by more than 150 people, with no one speaking out in favor of the plan. Other, smaller meetings held in Moscow and Rumford were met with generally mixed views, with the majority of those attending the meeting in Rangeley backing the proposed lowered training flight missions.
Maine’s Department of Transportation has collected 266 public comments that included concerns over alternative training sites not being explored, such as the Yankee MOA, in New Hampshire, and the Fort Drum MOA, in upstate New York. Rice responded that those two MOAs would be affected more than Condor 1 and Condor 2 would be by the changes, and that both were inferior to the Maine area due to terrain, distance and space constraints.
Jets training over Maine used to fly out of Otis Air Force Base on the Cape in Falmouth, Mass., but since the last round of military base realignments, they are stationed at Barnes Air Force Base in western Massachusetts. Opponents to the plan have said the distance is greater from Barnes AFB to Maine than other established training areas as economic reason enough to use other training areas. But Mutti disputed that by saying the distance to the training area in Maine is roughly the same from either base.
Other concerns voiced at the meetings have included the effects of sudden, loud sound bursts of the jets on the health of people and animals; the potential for mid-air collisions with recreational light aircraft; the possible fire hazard when flares or chaff are used in the training exercises; and many cite the economic impact on western Maine’s businesses that depend on quiet, peaceful settings.
The Air National Guard is operating an aircraft complaint hotline (508-968-4090) for residents who think the jets in training exercises are too low, too fast or too noisy and are setting up “bubbles” of space which their pilots won’t enter at a low altitude. “Bubbles” include certain towns, eagle nesting areas and Umbagog, a national wildlife refuge. Some have complained that the complaint hotline hasn’t worked when they called.
This week, state Sen. Walter Gooley, R-Farmington, and state Rep. Tom Saviello, U-Wilton, called a public meeting at the town office to “air this whole thing out,” Gooley said. About a dozen or so residents showed up, most expressing concerns about the proposal and possible strategies to raise the public’s awareness about the issue.
Saviello backs the need for an impact study, but noted in order to trigger the more detailed study, lots of letters need to be written by the public and sent to the Air Force, FAA and Maine’s Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins. He stressed the comments need to show that a significant impact and/or controversy would be generated by the lowered jet training flight proposal.
In the meantime, Gooley and Saviello said they will draw up a legislative resolve that Gooley said he hoped will raise the issue for people across Maine. Mutti said the public has six months total, five months until the draft is submitted to the FAA for its review and another 30-day period after that, to get their comments sent.
Written public comments can be sent to:
Lt. Col. Landon Jones, NGB/A7CVN, 3500 Fetchet Ave., Andrews Air Force Base, MD 20762
Allen Lucas, Military Liaison Officer, FAA Eastern Service Area, System Support Group (AJO-2E2B9) P.O. Box 20636, Atlanta, GA 30320.
U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, (DC Office) 413 Dirksen Senate Office Building, Washington, D.C. 20510
http://collins.senate.gov
U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe (DC office) 154 Russell Senate Office Building, Washington, D.C. 20510
http://snowe.senate.gov
My thanks Bobbie Hanstein for providing this even handed, background piece about low military flights in western Maine.
General Rice sees “no significant impact” lowering flight ceilings from 7,000 to 500 feet because he doesn’t live in western Maine where the economy struggles even when the rest of the country is booming. Today, caught in the greatest fiscal crisis in decades, western Maine has nothing left to market except peace and quiet. Now, the military wants to seriously impact the only economic lifeline we have.
I represent the Western Maine Cultural Alliance where I try to support the work of creative and cultural individuals and groups who, like myself and my husband, were inspired by the scenic wonder of this region enough to try and survive here. As arts budgets are being slashed and/or entirely eliminated, creative people are left with less and less options.
We are asking for a genuine Environmental Impact Statement because we believe the flaws of the current Environmental Assessment will be revealed when the process is given the serious depth it requires. Those of us who call this region ‘home’ feel we deserve to be treated with respect and dignity when our ability to survive economically is in the balance.
I fully agree with the points T. Seger makes and would hasten to add that one very good reason for a full EIS is precisely because of the 30 year lapse since any study has been conducted. Much has changed in the area since then and most of it mitigates against the kind of effects low altitude, high speed exercises would create.
Those of us who live in western Maine fully support and sympathize with the objectives General Rice seeks, but we are in extremely difficult circumstances and cannot tolerate more negative impact than we currently endure. It is not only “uninformed” civilians but professional and military pilots as well who unite in opposing the proposed changes.
Safety concerns are not trivial. News accounts of Air National Guard incidents in the Northeast include crashes, forest fires, a school strafed, practice bombs dropped, etc. etc. Anything of that sort in western Maine would be devastating.
Concerns were first aroused when the current EA was submitted two years ago. It was a debacle of error, omission and poorly structured explanation. The contractor responsible for it promised in an early meeting to update and re-submit the document for public comment. That has not happened, thus we are left with a jumble of unsatisfactory information and much wasted time and energy traveling to far-flung meetings. The whole experience has been a glaring example of what NOT to do to meet the intent of the process. The result is needless aggravation, doubt and negative attitudes, hardly what the Guard needs to achieve positive public regard.
I close with T. Seger’s thought: “Those of us who call this region ‘home’ feel we deserve to be treated with respect and dignity when our ability to survive economically is in the balance.”
When I relocated my business to western Maine in 1980 it was because I had been here several times on vacation and loved the beauty and peacefulness of these woods and mountains. It was the peace and quiet here, compared to downtown Boston, where I lived before, that attracted me and my husband with our audio recording business to move to Bethel. And the business followed. Since then we have recorded everyone from Grammy award winning Rock and Roll Hall of Fame musicians to local musicians just starting out.
Western Maine is a special place, and the creative economy here is our second most important asset, behind what some have labeled eco-tourism: hike the Appalachian Trail; swim in a lovely lake, or in a waterfall pool; ski or ride the great ski mountains – Sugarloaf, Sunday River, Saddleback, Mt. Abram; back country or telemark ski; cross-country ski – nordic ski; snowmobile across the mountains; canoe or kayak the rivers and lakes; ride the exciting whitewater of our fantastic rivers — it’s all an experience that would be spoiled indelibly and irreparably by a 500 ‘ buzz or flyover from a military jet.
It’s Christmas vacation week here in Bethel, and when I look around in the parking lots I see license plates from New York, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Virginia, Nevada, Colorado, North Carolina …people come here from around the country because of what western Maine is. I remember being a tourist here. This place is incredibly special.
It would not take long for visitors to be turned off by dogfights and jets buzzing their vacation homes, and condos. I can already imagine the plethora of “for sale” signs propagating across the mountainsides. People with serious money have invested in vacation homes here. They help support our local economy. But they’ll leave once it’s noisy, and unpleasant to be here.
A full Environmental Impact Statement is truly necessary for this proposal, and it needs to include the tourism-based economic impact, as well as the creative economy impact. This is not an unsettled wilderness. We LIVE here. And others come here to experience this particular place as it is. The $ they spend when they are here is how this little corner of the country propsers.
Our governor and our senators and representatives understand this. They are all calling for a full EIS. They represent us, and know what is best for Western Maine.
I strongly oppose military low flights over western Maine. They are a threat to the peace and serenity of our beautiful environment. The noise and sight of supersonic jets at low altitudes engaged in mock dogfights will significantly alter the quality of life of western Maine for people and animals. Please oppose this.