N.C. landowners upset with Navy's plans

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North Carolina
VIRGINIA PILOT
N.C. landowners upset with Navy's plans
By Cheryl Johnston
January 11, 2004

PLYMOUTH, N.C. -- The ceremony had guests, the mayor and a
ribbon-cutting, but it was not your typical groundbreaking or grand
opening.

In a soybean field on the outskirts of this northeastern North Carolina
town, a local farmer officially opened a tent city Saturday ? complete
with a dozen tents, a handful of campers and RVs, a few tractors, a
couple of grain trucks and two homemade F/A-18 Super Hornet models
mounted on trailers.

The tent city was the focal point of a weekend-long protest against the
Navy's intent to build a practice airfield here.

Many landowners and farmers are upset with the Navy's plans for the
airfield, which would be used by new jet squadrons that are to be housed
in Virginia Beach and Cherry Point, N.C.

The Navy wants to purchase the 30,000 acres to give the outlying landing
field, or OLF, a large buffer. Much of that acreage is farmland, some of
which has been in families for up to five generations.

"My father came out of World War II, bought it, cleared it, had it
drained," said Ronnie Askew of the 600 acres he farms with his
80-year-old mother. Askew said more than half of the property is in the
acreage that the Navy plans to buy.

"I'm here to let them know that I'm willing to fight for it if they want
to take it," Askew said. "I can't believe the Navy is taking the land
when they don't really need to. It's just not the American thing to do."

This article can be viewed at:
http://home.hamptonroads.com/stories/story.cfm?story=64528&ran=148207

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