THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, May 5, 1995 TAG: 9505050600
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DALE EISMAN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BALTIMORE LENGTH: Medium: 94 lines
Their week-old peace over water from Lake Gaston seemed a distant memory Thursday as officials from North Carolina and Virginia Beach went to war over another prize: Nine squadrons of Navy jets in need of a new home.
Led by Gov. James B. Hunt Jr., a delegation of Tar Heels assailed Pentagon plans to relocate the F/A-18 Hornet fighter-bombers to Oceana Naval Air Station in Virginia Beach.
The move would be expensive and environmentally damaging, the North Carolinians asserted. They argued that once the jets' home base in Florida is closed, they should go instead to the Marine Corps Air Station in Cherry Point, N.C.
``You don't fly over large shopping malls or thickly populated areas to land at Cherry Point,'' U.S. Sen. Lauch Faircloth, a North Carolina Republican, told members of the Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission.
The two interstate flashpoints merged in Faircloth's argument when he told the commission about Lake Gaston, the North Carolina lake that water-poor Virginia Beach will tap under an agreement Friday that ended a 12 1/2-year fight.
``In addition,'' Faircloth said, ``our area has an abundance of water. We do not have rationing and our water is clean. . . . Oceana and the Norfolk area have suffered from a severe water shortage since 1981, and to this date mandatory water-use restrictions are imposed.
``The Lake Gaston pipeline,'' he added, ``if it is ever built and with all of its contingencies, will not solve the problem.''
U.S. Rep. Owen B. Pickett, whose district includes Oceana, and Virginia Beach Mayor Meyera Oberndorf tried to blunt the attack in their presentations with low-key praise for the Navy's plans.
And after the hearing, a confident Pickett told reporters that the North Carolinians were ``just puffing. I think they know they don't have a chance.''
``Overcrowding is a nonissue,'' Oberndorf said. Even after all the additional planes arrive at Oceana, activity at the base ``will be at a level below what has already been assigned there during the mid- to late 1980s.''
Hailing the Lake Gaston deal, which she and Hunt signed, Oberndorf scoffed at assertions that Virginia Beach lacks water for the additional 5,000 people and their families that the new squadrons would bring to Hampton Roads.
She and Pickett also dismissed claims by Hunt that leaky underground fuel tanks at Oceana have dangerously polluted ground water in the area. Some residents of base housing have complained that their water smells of jet fuel, but repeated testing has found it safe.
The area's drinking water comes from Norfolk's public supply system.
The F/A-18 squadrons are based at Cecil Field near Jacksonville, Fla. The 1993 base-closing panel ordered Cecil closed and the Navy jets sent to Cherry Point - a move that concerned Navy aviators because the base is operated by Marines.
This year, the Pentagon has recommended shifting the planes to Oceana, saying the move would save more than $300 million over the cost of the Cherry Point option.
``What happened between 1993 and 1995, and why did it happen?'' Hunt asked Thursday. The Navy changed the criteria used to evaluate both bases and juggled figures to create a ``$385 million flip-flop'' in the cost comparisons, he charged.
Recommendations from the eight-member base-closing commission are due by July 1 and must be accepted or rejected as a package by President Clinton and Congress.
Pickett, a Democrat representing Virginia Beach and Norfolk, also appealed to the commission Thursday to reconsider the 1993 decision to close Norfolk Naval Aviation Depot. With the Hornets and other jets moving to Oceana, it makes sense to preserve a nearby depot to service them, he said.
The commission has rarely reversed earlier base-closing decisions since the post-Cold War military drawdown began in 1991. This year's base-closing round is the fourth and final one scheduled.
While the Oceana-Cherry Point dispute was the hearing's focal point for Hampton Roads, the largest chunk of the 100 minutes allocated for Virginia was devoted to Fort Pickett, a massive Army training installation in Southside Virginia.
The Army wants to convert the facility to a training ``enclave'' run by the National Guard and the Army Reserve. But Virginia officials assailed that proposal as mere cost-shifting and brought out a military heavyweight, retired Marine Commandant Gen. Alfred Gray, to extol Fort Pickett's value to all the services.
``If you didn't have Fort Pickett, you'd have to invent one,'' Gray said. The Army ignored the extensive use the Marines make of the fort's tank firing ranges, he said, and also failed to consider its value in training Navy SEALS and Air Force pilots. ILLUSTRATION: Map
STAFF
KEYWORDS: MILITARY BASES by CNB