The U.S. Air Force responded to public comments on the possible basing of the F-35 fighter jet at the Vermont Air National Guard in their final Environmental Impact Statement, marking an end to public input on the issue before a decision is made.
The final EIS, which was released Thursday evening, is the last assessment of the possible environmental consequences of basing a fleet F-35 fighter jets at two of six proposed locations in the U.S.
The Vermont Air National Guard in Burlington is still the preferred guard location to base 18 to 24 F-35 fighter jets to replace the 18 F-16s currently in use. McEntire Joint National Guard Base in South Carolina is the environmentally preferred alternative.
The final EIS includes the Air Force’s response to comments submitted after the draft EIS was released in May. It also includes more information, such as the addition of Community College of Vermont in the noise projection assessment.
The final EIS will be placed in the Federal Registrar on Oct. 4. There will be a 30-day waiting period before the Secretary and Chief of Staff of the Air Force would be able to issue a final record of decision on basing the fighters.
During the 45-day comment period on the revised draft EIS, the Air Force received a total of 809 letters, handwritten notes and emails, of which 644 were in opposition to the basing and 165 were in favor. They also received 10,349 postcards, of which 694 were opposing the basing and 9,655 were in support.
Nicole Citro, founder of the pro-F-35 group Green Ribbons for the F-35, said Friday she is satisfied that the Air Force acknowledged her postcard campaign.
However, the Air Force disputed the accuracy of some of the language on postcards the organization distributed this summer. Thousands of signatures and postcards were sent to Langley Air Force Base in Virginia during the public comment period on the draft EIS, which ended July 15.
The Green Ribbons postcards state that the F-35 will create noise levels similar to the current F-16, that there will be 2,613 fewer operations per year, and there will be no health effects on citizens.
The Air Force responded that while this comment will be noted in the decision-making process, the content is proven false by the EIS. The Air Force’s response states that the F-35s are projected to create more noise than the F-16s, and that there would be fewer operations only if 18 F-35 jets were based in Burlington.
Citro said the content of the postcard was composed in collaboration with the Vermont Air National Guard. She said there was not enough space on the postcard to explain in detail the evidence to support the statements.
“We just didn’t have the room, basically, but I felt confident that the people I was working with at the Vermont National Guard … that this was the right way to place that and put it out there for supporters,” she said.
Capt. Christopher Gookin, a Vermont National Guard spokesman, said it is likely that the statements on the cards included future planning strategies to mitigate noise.
Gookin said it is hard to simply look at noise projection models without understanding the complexity of planning to mitigate the impact of noise, such as flight patterns.
Rosanne Greco, a retired U.S. Air Force colonel who is now a member of the South Burlington City Council, has said the postcards and petitions cite misleading information concerning the health effects and noise of the aircraft.
Greco said the written comments, unlike the postcards and petitions, show a growing opposition to the basing of the aircraft.
Previously, the opposition reflected in the written comments was 67 percent responding to the draft EIS, which was replaced in May. This grew to 80 percent when commenters responded to the revised draft EIS, which was replaced this week.
Greco believes that now there is a 50-50 chance that the F-35s will come to Burlington. What stands in the way of this decision is the passage of a resolution by the Burlington City Council either opposing the beddown, at least temporarily, or a decision by the Air Force.
Burlington Progressive councilors are poised to introduce a resolution to oppose the basing.
She said Vermont’s congressional delegation, which has repeatedly supported the basing, is pushing the decision forward before more information preventing a basing decision is made public.
“It think they are afraid that the longer we wait the more those things will come out,” Greco said, referencing the possibility that the original scoring sheets used in the process of deciding where to base the F-35 fighter jet were purposely falsified.
There is currently a lawsuit against the Air Force brought by a Bristol attorney seeking the scoring sheets after a Freedom of Information Act request was denied.
She said the Air Force might not want to make a decision because there are many unanswered questions around the issue that could lead to future litigation.
Ann Stefanek, a spokeswoman for the Air Force, said it is possible that President Barack Obama’s recent nomination of Deborah Lee James to replace Eric Fanning as Secretary of the Air Force could change who is the ultimate decision-maker.
There has been one confirmation hearing on Obama’s nomination, Stefanek said. Stefanek said whoever the final arbiter is, he or she will review all the information in the final EIS.
