Editor,

In a recent Sound Off in the Whidbey News-Times, Capt. Matt Arny explained that “the Navy is proposing an increase in operations at the OLF, from 6,120 or 1 percent of the time, to about 360 hours/year or about 4 percent of the time.”

That 4 percent statistic disguises the actual impacts. A single session of three-to-five jets circling Outlying Field Coupeville normally lasts about 40-45 minutes. Most folks can endure and work around one session in a day.

Two sessions becomes intrusive, and anything over that is exasperating and a major impact on one’s life.

Three sessions with short breaks in between takes about three to four hours out of one’s 16-hour awake-time day or about 25 percent of the day. That’s enough to pretty much screw up one’s day.

If the Navy averages three sessions, 240 operations) per OLF practice day, it would require about 100 days each year to compile 23,700 operations.

That amounts to about 27 percent of the days in the year being devalued, disordered, denigrated and disrupted. For example: Dinner guests?—no way. Business phone conversations?—impossible. Watching TV?—nope.

Afternoon walk with the dog?—not today, Fido. Evening bike ride? Forget it.

And so much more.

Many folks try to arrange their frustrated schedules to avoid scheduled practice sessions. Some even move for several or more days to other accommodations.

And, when scheduled practices are canceled, it expands the number of days compromised and adds to the takings. For example, in 2017, cancellations amounted to about 30 percent of the scheduled days.

That cancelation rate would add about 30 days to the 100 above, or about 130 days, 36 percent, each year will be conceded to OLF practice.

But there’s more: “High tempo” years, which significantly expand the number of operations and practice days. On those years, we’re now up to maybe 40 percent of the days in the year.

This is not moral or right. Our politicians need to do what we pay them to do and help the Navy adjust their myopic preference and thoughtfully and credibly examine all the realistic alternatives.

The Navy sought to acquire 20,000-plus acres in eastern North Carolina to build a brand new OLF for its Oceana base in the Norfolk area. If they could afford that there, they could afford to do it here in the barren wheat fields of central-western Washington.

Michael Monson

Coupeville