THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, February 12, 1997 TAG: 9702110436
SECTION: MILITARY NEWS PAGE: A16 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JACK DORSEY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: 94 lines
Although not the biggest item in the military construction budget for 1998, the $12.8 million proposed for remodeling the Navy's ``wooden island'' in the middle of the Elizabeth River may be among most visible expenditures to service members and civilians in Hampton Roads.
The island facility, which the Navy calls its ``deperming piers'' or ``degaussing station,'' is a spindly structure off Lamberts Point and a familiar sight to boaters in Norfolk and Portsmouth.
It's been around since World War II, and is due a facelift.
The midriver island is designed to permanently demagnetize a ship's hull, making it less vulnerable to underwater mines.
A steel-hulled ship, theory holds, will touch off a submerged mine equipped with a magnetic detonation device unless it's degaussed, a process named for a 19th-century German mathematician and astronomer Karl F. Gauss, who developed the theory.
So Navy personnel at the midriver facility wrap ships with huge webs of cable that are then charged with electricity to create an electromagnet. In that way, they can align a ship's magnetic field with that of the earth's, thereby reducing a ship's magnetic ``signature,'' or influence on such mines.
The work is infrequent: Normally, only brand-new ships, or those that have been drydocked for extended periods of time, need such treatment.
But the work is important, and it can't easily be accomplished elsewhere. The Norfolk facility is the only remaining deperming and degaussing facility on the East Coast.
The budget allocation would replace the island's wooden piers with concrete, and would see the area dredged to accommodate any of the Navy's ships, from frigates and subs to mammoth aircraft carriers.
Plans call for awarding a construction contract in November for dredging and construction, according to John Peters, a spokesman for the Naval Facilities Engineering Command in Norfolk.
Construction is expected to take 18 months.
THE PROPOSAL IS ONE AMONG DOZENS earmarked for Hampton Roads and Virginia in next year's military construction plan, which - in contrast to past years - would see the federal government favor projects in the Old Dominion over those in California and Texas.
Virginia would receive $223.8 million in construction spending under the plan. By contrast, California is to receive $185.9 million and Texas, $23.9 million.
Nearly one-tenth of the Virginia allocation - $22.1 million - would finance the replacement of fuel tanks at the Defense Fuel Support Point on Portsmouth's Craney Island.
The region would also benefit from $20.9 million spent in the construction of a new Bachelor Enlisted Quarters at Oceana Naval Air Station in Virginia Beach, and another $7 million spent on renovations of an existing BEQ at the Fleet Combat Training Center, Dam Neck.
OTHER VIRGINIA PROJECTS PROPOSED in the 1998 Military Construction budget are:
$14.2 million for construction of an Air Passenger Terminal at Norfolk Naval Air Station.
$12.8 million for the renovation of the Defense Finance Accounting Service office at Atlantic Fleet headquarters in Norfolk.
$9.5 million for an Oily Waste Collection System at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Portsmouth.
$8.7 million for construction at the air cushioned vehicle, or LCAC complex, at Little Creek Naval Amphibious Base in Norfolk.
$6.1 million for construction of a Consolidated Support Center for the Norfolk Naval Base.
$5.9 million for a missile magazine at the Yorktown Naval Weapons Station.
$5 million for a jet engine test cell at Oceana.
$5.4 million for construction of a gymnasium at the Yorktown Naval Weapons Station.
$4 million for second-phase work on a fire station at Langley Air Force Base in Hampton.
$2.1 million for construction of an Air Operations Control Tower at Oceana.
$20.5 million for several projects at Dalghren, including: an Aegis combat systems support facility; Electronic Warfare Integration facility; and operations and maintenance training facility.
$9.3 million for a commissary building at Fort Lee in Petersburg.
$2.1 million for a child development center at the Defense General Supply Center in Richmond.
$3.1 million for a gas cylinder facility at the Defense General Supply Center at Fort Lee.
$16.6 million for a warehouse at the Defense Distribution Depot, Richmond.
$19 million for replacement of a medical and dental clinic at Quantico. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
Infrequent, but important, work takes place at the Navy's deperming
piers in the elizabeth River. The world War II-era facility - the
only one left on the Easdt Coast - demagnetizes ships' hulls, making
them less vulnerable to underwater mines that have magnetic
detonators.
KEYWORDS: MILITARY CONSTRUCTION MILITARY BUDGET