Editor,

This is in response to Bob Wilbur’s Aug. 5 letter to the editor, in which he makes wild claims about some “internal e-mail.”

Well, Citizens of Ebey’s Reserve was provided by the courts a copy of the EA-18G EIS administrative record, and yet not made this series of documents public for verification.

One can only hope this mysterious “internal e-mail” came from there and not through illicit means.

It is also worth noting that, regardless of the claims in Wilbur’s letter, those claims have yet to be submitted in federal court for examination and rebuttal.

Instead, Capt. Illston, commander of the Electronic Attack Wing, said under oath with penalty of perjury in response to COER’s demands for injunctive relief, “Sending aviators, instructors and maintenance personnel to detachments to other airfields to obtain FCLP [Field Carrier Landing Practice] training disrupts the finely-tuned process of training naval aviators. Travel to and from the detachment is a drain on our budget, as we must pay for travel, lodging and per diem for the detachment personnel. It reduces the service life of the aircraft, accelerating required maintenance.”

“Bluntly speaking,” Illston continued, “it was decided at a national level that noise annoyance was not worth the significant national fiscal and political investments to close OLF Coupeville.”

Ultimately, the Navy did its Environmental Impact Study at the community’s request — a study I and many OLF supporters publicly requested also and made a clear and convincing case for OLF Coupeville.

That EIS addressed NAF El Centro.

I am confident the federal courts will concur.

If Citizens of Ebey’s Reserve has information to the contrary, now would be the time for COER to make this information, like this administrative record I keep hearing about, publicly available for independent verification.

Joe A. Kunzler

Sedro Woolley