Let Virginians hear them roar

Pender County's future isn't likely to be enhanced by the shriek of super-loud Super Hornets. Neither is Duplin County's.

Yet state officials have suggested the Pender-Duplin line as one of six possible sites for a practice landing field for Navy pilots.

The best that can be said for those six sites, all in eastern North Carolina, is that they wouldn't as awful as the Navy's first choice: a swatch of Beaufort and Washington counties, close to a national wildlife refuge whose migrating birds would have threatened the lives of pilots.

Environmentalists and local officials fought the Navy in federal court and won. Now they're trying to work with the Navy by suggesting other sites.

Most of the jets are based in Virginia. Most of the economic benefits flow to Virginia. But the Virginians want North Carolina's people and wildlife to endure the racket.

N.C. Senate leader Marc Basnight, a resident of Manteo, doesn't want the landing field anywhere in North Carolina. It would generate only about 50 low-paying jobs, he points out, and it could hurt long-term growth prospects.

North Carolina already devotes huge stretches of landscape to the national defense. Most Tar Heels are pleased and proud of that. But other states should do their part, too.