Editor,

Robert Brown’s July 13 letter to the editor spoke to jet noise avoidance being a home buyer’s responsibility. He knew all about the jet noise, did his research and bought accordingly.

But let’s look at buyer Joe. Perhaps Joe was unaware or misinformed by others who didn’t have his interest at heart, or he trusted anecdotal sources that said jet noise was no problem.

Maybe after buying, the Navy changes from a fifty-fifty split on flight paths “x” and “y” to all on path “y,” doubling the number of operations over Joe’s house. Or, maybe Joe believed in the limited number of jet operations the Navy had promised but later finds that pledge ignored and operations doubled — both true.

Maybe Joe finds out that the new Growlers on approach over his house are nearly twice as loud as the Prowlers and that the environmental assessment used bogus and cherry-picked data to manufacture a no-impact finding for the Prowler to Growler switch — also true.

Maybe one day Joe finds out that neither the county nor the Navy forthrightly provided information about health risks of toxic jet noise on adults, children, and the unborn fetus — research findings they know about but prefer to ignore — how sadly true.

Joe probably didn’t known that all of the following violate the Navy’s OLF planning document, AICUZ 2005, which specifies that within the 65-decibel noise contour none of these should exist: The 1,000-plus existing homes, the heavily used county recycle center, the outdoor swimming pool at Admirals Cove, the new transit facility with above-ground fuel storage tanks, the youth athletic fields and campground at Rhododendron Park, and a motel recently converted to a residence for 90-plus homeless youngsters who will experience 100-120 decibel noise — hard-to-believe TRUE.

The “true list” goes on. But back to Mr. Brown’s concern about responsibility. Seems to me it is the Navy and Island County that have side-stepped their responsibility and helped Joe to err in their favor.

So, in addition to asking, “who’s responsible?” let’s also ask, “where is the accountability?”

Ken Pickard

Coupeville