High Anxiety in St. Lawrence County: Citizen Action and U.S. Military Flights, 1989–1992

Introduction

As Nancy Anne Rounds of DePeyster, New York quietly worked at her home on the afternoon of May 9, 1989, she and her family were startled by a loud noise. A series of low-altitude flights by B-52 bombers and F-111s thundered over the farm property, frightening Rounds' children, who were observing a robin and her young in a nest. "The roar was so bad that our reflexes quickly made us cover our ears. As this plane bore down on us I felt fear and anger begin," she recalled. She was not alone. Schoolchildren were scared and distracted, and local Amish farmers using horses found that their animals bolted when the planes passed overhead. A nearby dairy farmer recounted how her cows were so frightened that they would not leave their barn to eat, nor give milk. The farmer told Rounds, "she just felt like crying … [that she and her family] moved here for the peace and quiet. That when they came, they expected to stay for the rest of their lives. Now she says that she doesn't know what they will do (That says a lot for our property value)." Rounds continued:

[My] husband's family [had] farmed here for six generations. Many of our farms … have come down through our families. They are part of us. It is wrong for our government to disrupt our lives like this. If we wanted to live in the city or near an airport or even a war zone we would be in those places.¹

They did not know it at first, but Rounds and others in St. Lawrence County had witnessed United States Air Force demonstration flights, and these were only a preview of what would escalate in the coming months. Four months earlier, in January 1989, the Air Force's Strategic Air Command (SAC) proposed low-altitude flights over the area beginning in the Champlain Valley (with planes taking off from air bases in Plattsburgh and Rome, New York) and ending at Lake Ontario. The B-52 bombers and F-111 fighter-bombers would fly only 500 feet above ground level in some locations. Aircraft would race more than 550 miles-per-hour and produce noise levels of up to 114 decibels (loud enough to affect a person's hearing). The planes would do so as often as 300 times per month. In May 1989, the SAC conducted two days of demonstration flights that sparked a local public outcry.

What emerged in the county between 1989 and 1992 was public opposition to an ill-conceived SAC proposal. The Coalition on Low Altitude Flights (COLAF) became the principal clearinghouse for opposition to the overflight plan. It gathered support from a mélange of county residents: from long-time residents to recent "back-to-landers," from dairy farmers to university faculty. Repeatedly, COLAF pointed to the myriad qualities of rural life that it wished to preserve. It valued the important local dairy industry and feared that the loud noise would affect cows' ability to produce milk. COLAF worried for children's hearing and wondered if the flights would endanger wildlife. It also worried that the Adirondacks and St. Lawrence County would lose the bucolic charm that attracted tourists. By 1992, the SAC realized that insurmountable public pressure would hinder the plan, and it quietly withdrew from the scene. COLAF's non-confrontational approach toward the SAC and other agencies, a demonstrated respect for military families, and a measured defense of their place of residence had yielded a positive outcome for local inhabitants.

The Setting

St. Lawrence County lies between the Adirondack Mountains and the St. Lawrence River. The population stood at 111,974 in 1990: only .006 percent of the total New York State population of 17,990,778.² The area is rural, with farming, forestry, and tourism forming the primary economic sectors.

Upstate New York is no stranger to military bases. Just outside Watertown, Fort Drum has been a US military installation since the early twentieth century...