The joys of Washington’s Olympic National Park include being put to sleep by the sound of surf, the whistle of winds at high places like Bogachiel Peak, and the swift, purposeful, near silent movement of a Roosevelt Elk herd across a meadow.
U.S. Rep. Derek Kilmer, D-Wash., who represents the Olympic Peninsula, wants to know if these sounds — and silences — are threatened by the U.S. Navy’s interest in using areas of the Peninsula for electronic warfare range testing, with an increased number of jets flying over pristine places. Kilmer wants the National Park Service to collect new noise samples and data for FICAN. He wants the federal agency to review possible noise pollution of the 917,000-acre park, its mountainous interior and renowned coastal strip.
The Navy has already conducted a noise study related to the National Environmental Policy Act. But, said Kilmer, the study used a framework “that is more commonly associated with community noise in urban settings and not appropriate for analyzing the impacts to a national park.”...more
The Presidential Proclamation for the Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument says that nothing in the document shall " preclude low level overflights of military aircraft". It says nothing, however, about noise pollution. I'm sure, though, that Udall-Heinrich would never let the monument designation interfere with the operations of White Sands Missile Range, Ft. Bliss or NASA...aren't you?
Issues of concern to people who live in the west: property rights, water rights, endangered species, livestock grazing, energy production, wilderness and western agriculture. Plus a few items on western history, western literature and the sport of rodeo... Frank DuBois served as the NM Secretary of Agriculture from 1988 to 2003. DuBois is a former legislative assistant to a U.S. Senator, a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Interior, and is the founder of the DuBois Rodeo Scholarship.
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