by Jessie Stensland, Whidbey News-Times Co-editor

Whidbey News-Times is also owned by Sound Publishing

A Central Whidbey group’s lawsuit against the U.S. Navy is officially over.

Citizens of Ebey’s Reserve for a Healthy, Safe & Peaceful Environment, or COER, and a top Navy official agreed to a stipulation of dismissal of the 2013 lawsuit in U.S. District Court this week. The federal lawsuit was dismissed without prejudice, which means that it can be refiled.

COER’s attorney, David Mann of Seattle, said the dismissal is largely a housekeeping matter because all of the issues from the lawsuit have been dealt with already.

COER originally filed a lawsuit against the Navy in 2013 to force it to prepare a full environmental impact statement, or EIS, for the new Growler, which the group considers to be much louder than the prior aircraft, the EA-6B Prowler.

The lawsuit argued that the number of flights at OLF Coupeville was much higher than the Navy had promised and that the Growlers were much louder than the Navy originally indicated. The Navy uses the small runway in the rural area as simulated carrier landing practice.

After the lawsuit was filed, the Navy announced that a full environmental impact statement will be conducted for the addition of new squadrons coming to Whidbey; the report is currently scheduled to be released this fall. The Navy also cut back significantly on the number of the touch-and-go flights at OLF Coupeville and started communicating with the public about the flight schedule.

As part of the lawsuit, COER filed a preliminary injunction against the Navy to halt the flights until the EIS was completed; the judge ruled against COER.

Essentially, all of the issues in the lawsuit have been resolved.

“At this point, it doesn’t have a lot of relevance,” he said, adding that it probably should have been dismissed after the judge’s decision on the injunction.

Mann said the lawsuit would probably only be re-filed if the Navy increased the number of flights at the OLF again, which he said is unlikely to happen.

Once the EIS is released, COER members will undoubtedly take a close look at it. Mann said that any legal action that may come in response to the EIS would be in the form of a completely new lawsuit.