Noise to Drop with Resurfaced Runway, Navy Says

Traffic on the southern runway at Naval Outlying Landing Field just south of Coronado started again Tuesday, moving operations further away from homes just over the field's fence.

For the past six months operations were conducted from the smaller northern runway at the Imperial Beach field.

"Twenty-six [the northern runway] was not originally a runway. It was a parking lot, but mission requirements dictated back in the 80s that the Navy needed more runway space," said Lt. John Peters, who runs air traffic control for Naval Base Coronado.

The northern and southern runways are only about 200 feet apart, but that small distance made a big difference to residents.

"Part of this uptick in noise complaints that we got recently is because of the temporary shift in operations," Peters said.

That shift became a "lightning rod" for criticism from local residents in nearby Imperial Beach neighborhoods, he added.

Initial plans were to have the resurfacing finished while pilots were away during the Christmas holiday, but funding problems and old clay found beneath the runway that needed to be removed slowed things down.

The delay came just as people were beginning to read an environmental assessment about a Navy proposal to increase helicopter operations and activity 30 percent within five years.

NOLF IB is used for touch-and-go operations, auto rotations which simulate engine failure and practice landings on helicopter pads with markings and size akin to an aircraft carrier deck.

About $5.6 million was spent on the runway repairs. The original runway was built in the 1920s and was resurfaced in the 1970s.

Between the Coast Guard, Brown Field and Tijuana's airport, there is a lot of air traffic in the area, and sometimes Navy activity is mistaken with Homeland Security, which flies almost identical H-60 helicopters, Peters said.

"So often you'll hear noise complaints coming in late at night, believe it or not, most of those, I'm almost positive, but we can't put a number on it, are generated from the Department of Homeland Security," Peters said.

"We'll hear, 'Hey, I see a Navy helicopter,' but in reality it's not."

In the future, NOLF IB may get a new air traffic control tower and could do more than helicopter training

Helicopter pilots trained at NOLF IB go on to anti-mine or anti-submarine warfare, search and rescue operations, special operations, maritime security and more.

"The Navy's shifting from the white fleet to a special operations platform, from a white Navy to a brown Navy, meaning more operations closer to the coast," Peters said.