THE REAL ORIGINS OF THE WYLE STUDY
Dear——–,
In response to your inquiry about the Wyle Study, there is a lot of misinformation being circulated on how the Wyle Study came about. Some 3 years ago it became obvious to several of us in Midtown that the Military Community Relations Committee (MCRC) was not really interested in addressing the problem of low-level DM overflights over Tucson residential areas. We then started a letter writing campaign (outside the MCRC) directly to Washington focused on something called the Operation Snowbird Program which seemed to be the source of the problem. Two letters, signed by 500 & 800 residents, were sent to DoD and the White House complaining about safety and noise from the Snowbird Program.
We gradually began to realize that there had been a major change in the Snowbird Program about the year 2000 in which the Program mission was changed unannounced from temporary winter proficiency training of mostly A-10 units stationed in northern, winter-bound US airfields to predeployment training of any US/Allied fighter aircraft (F-16. F-15, F-18, Harriers, Tornados) that signed up for the training program. It also became a year-round Program. We then began to realize that there had been no safety assessment or noise assessment of this revised Program. We subsequently found out that there had never been an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) done of the aircraft of the revised Program. (An Environmental Assessment (EA) was done for the original Snowbird Program in 1978. However, none of the aircraft in this Environmental Assessment any longer fly.)
Most of this exchange about the Operation Snowbird program took place in the MCRC Operations Subcommittee where it was difficult getting straight-forward answers about the planes involved, the existence of an EIS, the safety data on non-AF aircraft, and the noise impact and effects on residents under the flight paths. Operation Snowbird was only presented as a program long in existence since 1975…. A safety problem couldn’t exist, noise has always been there from the time of inception, etc., etc.
We then had a lawyer write a letter to DoD and the Inspector General pointing out that there was a safety and noise problem. There had never been an EIS done so the AF did not know the extent of the safety/noise problem and DM was not following federal National Environmental Protection Agency (NEPA) law regarding the aircraft in the Operation Snowbird Program. This was subsequently followed by another letter written by a lawyer resident simply stating that the Program was not following federal environmental law, namely, NEPA, and DM knew it and was still operating the Program.
With all of this, the AF decided to do a study of the Operation Snowbird Program and presented the Wyle Study last October to the MCRC and the public as a Study that would be completed by Aug 2010. So far, it has not gotten past the draft stage which we are told is being circulated within the AF. In the meantime, two months ago the AF announced that an EIS would in fact be done. We suspect that the draft Wyle Study recommended it, although nobody knows for sure, nor does the public know of any other findings of the Study. It does raise the question of the existence of other problems brought up in the Study. We won’t know for sure until the draft study is made available to the public as originally planned.
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