Charlotte Observer
1.21.07
Navy gets a fight over amber waves of grain
Families don't want an outlying landing field in rural N.C. farmland
Jack Betts, IN MY OPINION
PLYMOUTH - A cold, hard January rain hammered on the sheet-metal roof of Myra and Jerry Beasley's barn on their wide, flat farm on the Washington-Beaufort county line Thursday night.
It was the sort of nasty night that ought to have kept folks home by the wood stove, but these are tough people. Over the past five years they've fought the Navy to a standstill in a legal battle to halt the creation of a practice landing field in the middle of some of the best farmland in northeastern North Carolina.
The Navy wants to build the field so F/A-18 SuperHornet jet pilots can practice day and nighttime aircraft carrier landings.
But the farm families of the rural enclave don't want to lose the land, some of it in their families for generations. And they worry the jets will collide with some of the hundreds of thousands of large migratory waterfowl that live in a nearby wildlife refuge and feed in the farm fields half of each year.
Wildlife biologists report a record number of tundra swans and snow geese in the refuge this year. Many of them spend their nights on the water of nearby Pungo Lake and in daylight fly to nearby fields to glean them of corn and soybeans left from the fall harvest.
"This is their home," says Wilt Howell, a small grains and corn farmer. Some of the Howell clan came to the Beasleys' barn for an annual winter gathering to talk about plans for their campaign against the Navy. So far they have forced the Navy to halt buying land for the outlying landing field and revise an environmental impact statement that U.S. District Judge Terry Boyle said was inadequate.
The Navy may unveil its revised environmental statement in late winter. Farmers, conservationists, outdoors enthusiasts and environmentalists in Washington and Beaufort counties who oppose the OLF have tried to persuade political leaders that there are better places within North Carolina to construct it. They haven't gotten very far getting elected leaders in Raleigh and Washington to listen.
But what rips these generally conservative rural folks is any suggestion that their opposition is somehow anti-military, or anti-American, or ungodly. These are flag-waving folks. Many of them served in the Army, Navy or Marines. They're churchgoers who pray before meals and who post signs in front of the houses urging passers-by to pray for their deliverance from the OLF.
The Beasley barn was festooned with red, white and blue candles and table decorations and red, blue and silver garlands. It was part pep rally, part church service, part dinner-on-the-grounds and as genuine as anything ever made in America.
It started with a prayer from Wilt Howell's brother Fred and ended with a memorable version of The Lord's Prayer sung by a big man named Larry Norman. But when Jerry and Myra Beasley's son Kevin stood up before the crowd, the barn got really quiet for the first time all night.
"I am 11 years old. This barn where we are standing tonight was built on land owned by my family for five generations," Kevin said. His parents, neighbors and friends had worked hard to protect the region, he said.
"Since the age of 6 I have been with my parents to many OLF meetings, local and far away. I have seen the joy on my parents' faces when so many people reunited together to help us save our land and wildlife," he said, but he had also seen their tears when the Navy continued to press to build the OLF.
"I ask you to help me to keep my family and my friends from enduring this battle any longer. ... Please help me take this message back to Senators Dole, and Burr, Congress and our state leadership, and tell them to stop this wrong. And lastly, please, help me and my friends to keep the freedom that allows us to follow in our parents' footsteps so we can continue to keep our family-farms alive."
I don't know what kind of a chance the Navy would have if it had to debate Kevin Beasley about the OLF. But I do know who would have the crowd eating out of his 11-year-old hands.
