WORT, A Public Affair: Opposition To F-35 Fighter Jets In Madison

Listen to the show which was broadcast live Thursday 8/22/19. (A Public Affair begins about 7-1/2 minutes into the recording).

The Truax Field Air National Guard Base on Madison’s North Side is one of five proposed sites around the country for a new fighter jet program that would host a fleet of F-35s. This program would highly impact thousands of residents in the area with increased noise levels and pollution, safety concerns, and local economic impacts.

On today’s [8/22] episode, we learn about the opposition to bringing the F-35s to Madison with guest host Gil Halsted. He is joined in the studio by Tom Boswell and Vicki Berenson of Safe Skies Clean Water Wisconsin. Along with a host of listener callers, they articulate a variety of concerns around the F-35s from the environmental impact—including water pollution and unhealthy noise levels—to money spent on the global arms race at the expense of domestic needs.