This morning I rose with nothing special planned in mind. Then an
e-mail presented an emotional gut punch. Here’s the e-mail I received:

                                        Judge Rules Against the Navy

From the COER Press Release:
It’s official. A long-awaited decision that began in 2019 has been made by the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington today, August 2, 2022. It is the consequential ruling the community had hoped for.
Judge Jones adopted, in full, the Report and Recommendation provided by Magistrate Creatura in December 2021. That report was the result of a National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) challenge brought by the plaintiffs—the State of Washington and Citizen’s of Ebey’ s Reserve (COER) and Paula Spina—against the United States Department of the Navy.
Judge Jones made no changes to the magistrate’s recommendations. His December report had admonished the Navy’s Environmental Impact Statement (EIS):
Here, despite a gargantuan administrative record, covering nearly 200,000 pages of studies, reports, comments, and the like, the Navy selected methods of evaluating the data that supported its goal of increasing Growler operations. The Navy did this at the expense of the public and the environment, turning a blind eye to data that would not support this intended result.

Or, to borrow the words of noted sports analyst Vin Scully, the Navy appears to have used certain statistics “much like a drunk uses a lamppost: for support, not illumination.”
For two inspiring videos click here: [sounddefensealliance.org] (worth watching - scroll down to Hear our Olympics).
For an article in the Seattle Times click here.
• Watch the interview with Cynthia Dilling at the bottom.
I have been active with two groups, Sound Defense Alliance and COER (Citizens of Ebby’s Reserve) for years. This issue is a serious blight on our corner of the world. We don’t see it as local but a possible move, by the military, to control the citizens of the country under the guise of ‘protection.’ How to beat our increasingly overbearing military. In today’s world it seems we need to fight for silence.