Navy shuts down Project ELF this week
By Robert Imrie/Associated Press
WAUSAU, Wis. - With terrorism the new global threat, a network of
antennas strung atop 40-foot poles in northern Wisconsin that lets the Navy
signal submarines prowling the oceans has become another Cold War
relic.
The Navy will shut off its extremely low frequency (ELF) radio
transmitters Thursday - 15 years after they were turned on and decades after
they were first proposed as a way for missile-packed submarines to stay
hidden, giving the United States an edge over the Soviet Union.
For years, peace activists and environmentalists targeted the
transmitters in the Chequamegon National Forest near Clam Lake and in Upper
Michigan's Escanaba State Forest near Republic.
The network's closure will bring an end to the demonstrations that led
to hundreds of arrests in acts of civil disobedience, some for
trespassing onto the site and sawing down poles.
It also means the loss of dozens of jobs.
"It is definitely going to hurt the economy," said Roger Anderson,
co-owner of Deb's Y-Go-By, a bar, grill and bait shop in Clam Lake, a quiet
tourist wayside about 40 miles from Lake Superior.
"Eventually, we knew this was going to be obsolete. It is just coming a
little sooner than we thought," Anderson said. "Maybe they need the
money for the Iraq war or the war on terrorism."
Project ELF is outdated and can be replaced by other communications
technology, the Navy said in announcing Sept. 17 it will dismantle the
facilities within the next three years.
U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., who has wanted to shut down Project
ELF since 1993, said the Navy for years had a "bunker mentality" in
trying to pretend the facility had a purpose.
Clearly, a system designed to deal with Soviet submarines isn't a
military priority, Feingold said.
"I do think the war on terror had something to do with this," Feingold
said. "I think people are finally realizing we need to equip our
military and everything we do toward the real threats."
Steven Davis, spokesman for the Navy's Space and Navy Warfare Systems
Command in San Diego, said closing ELF comes after a "re-evaluation" of
the Navy's priorities. "Even as recently as three years ago, the world
has changed considerably," he said.
The Navy spent $13 million a year, including about $400,000 for
electricity, to run both ELF transmitters, Davis said. Each site has one Navy
worker and 27 civilian contractors.
The government has not yet determined the cost of dismantling the
sites, Davis said.
The Navy began using the $400 million system in 1989. Its radio waves,
sent from antennas strung on hundreds of poles across miles of forest,
permitted submarines to roam undetected by radar while receiving basic
messages.