
DATE: Friday, April 18, 1997                TAG: 9704180893

SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY SCOTT HARPER AND JACK DORSEY, STAFF WRITERS 

                                            LENGTH:  104 lines

NORTH CAROLINA GRASPS FOR HORNETS OFFICIALS ATTACK VIRGINIA'S CLEAN-AIR CERTIFICATION

Just as Hampton Roads leaders were breathing easy over the prospect of having 10 new Navy jet squadrons in town, North Carolina officials have launched a last-gasp effort to snare some of the planes for themselves.

Business and government leaders south of the state line say that the air around the squadrons' planned home - Oceana Naval Air Station in Virginia Beach - isn't as clean as the air at the Marine Corps Air Station at Cherry Point.

Hampton Roads shouldn't be removed from the federal government's list of smog-troubled cities, they argue. And because nature has so smiled on Cherry Point, it should host some of the 175 F/A-18 Hornets the Navy plans to move to Virginia Beach from Florida.

At stake are not only the fighter-attack jets, their crews and families and the millions of dollars they'd bring, but the federal government's recognition of Hampton Roads as having clean air - a designation vital to its economic well-being.

Without it, the region's efforts to grow industry, jobs and tax base could be compromised.

At the center of the Carolinian gambit is Hampton Roads' compliance with the Clean Air Act. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's view is that the region has followed the government's pollution rules: The agency published a notice recommending that Hampton Roads be removed from a list of smog-troubled cities on April 26.

That needs to happen before 10 Hornet squadrons can be moved from Cecil Field, near Jacksonville, Fla., to Oceana. A clean-air designation also would lift limits on new or expanding businesses that emit air pollutants causing smog, and the threat of mandatory tailpipe inspections on cars and trucks would evaporate, as well.

Hampton Roads has not experienced an hour of excessive smog - a respiratory hazard produced when fumes from power plants, industrial outlets, autos and paints combine under intense sunlight - since 1993. Local leaders have been pressing the federal government to remove the region from its smog list for almost two years.

But the Carolinians, among them U.S. Sen. Lauch Faircloth, have objected, saying in two recent letters to the EPA that Virginia has not followed the procedures necessary to earn the clean-air designation, and that Hampton Roads' removal from the smog list would be premature.

``We've learned there's an environmental concern up there, and we think we're highly suited to receive those aircraft,'' said Joe Huffman, city manager of Havelock, N.C., near the Cherry Point base.

Huffman is one of 26 members of Allies in Defense of Cherry Point, a group fighting Congress and the Navy to relocate at least some of the squadrons to the North Carolina air station.

Cherry Point was supposed to get some of the jets and the economic boost expected with them, under a plan approved by the Base Realignment and Closure Commission in 1993.

But two years later, BRAC changed its mind and decided to send all of the planes to Oceana, making it the nation's largest Navy fighter-attack base.

Marcia Spink, the EPA's assistant director of air programs in Philadelphia, said Thursday that the North Carolina protests will delay a final ruling on the clean-air designation by at least six weeks, and perhaps longer if other critical letters are fielded.

Local officials, while acknowledging the delay, believe the designation will be approved. But the protest has stoked a smoldering fued between Virginia and North Carolina, already fighting over drinking water rights at Lake Gaston.

``Why don't they just mind their own business?'' snapped Ann Baldwin, an economic development official with Forward Hampton Roads, an arm of the Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce. ``Do they just like to protest things in Virginia?''

Art Collins, executive director of the Hampton Roads Planning District Commission, called North Carolina's arguments ``not of substance, and just not accurate.''

For example, Collins said, the Cherry Point group argued that Virginia has not completed a 10-year plan for retaining clean air. He said such a plan not only exists, it factors in the environmental impacts that are expected from the new Navy squadrons.

``I really have a sense that they haven't done their homework,'' Collins said Thursday.

Navy officials said Thursday that North Carolina's objections will not disrupt the service's work on its draft environmental impact statement - a key study that must be completed before squadrons can relocate here.

``Speculation about future EPA decisions will not influence the ongoing preparation of the (report),'' said Lt. Cmdr. Bob Ross, a spokesman for the Atlantic Fleet.

The Navy has been urged by U.S. Rep. Owen B. Pickett, D-2nd District, to finish work quickly on the study in order to accept the new squadrons about a year from now.

The first squadron is supposed to arrive at Oceana in May 1998. They would then start arriving in shifts, with the final one reaching Oceana by May 1999. ILLUSTRATION: Graphic

WHAT NORTH CAROLINA CLAIMS

It should receive some of the 175 F/A-18 Hornets the Navy plans

to move to Virginia Beach from Florida because it says Hampton Roads

should remain on the federal government's list of smog-troubled

cities.

WHY THE CLEAN-AIR DESIGNATION IS IMPORTANT

All the squadrons - and the crews, families and millions of

dollars in payrolls they would bring - can't come without it.

It boosts efforts to increase the region's industry, jobs and tax

base.

WHAT'S NEXT

A final ruling on Hampton Roads' clean-air designation will be