DATE: Thursday, June 26, 1997               TAG: 9706260354

SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A15  EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY JACK DORSEY, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: NORFOLK                           LENGTH:   72 lines

NAVY COMPLETES IMPACT STUDY ON MOVING MORE JETS TO OCEANA AT LEAST 135 DAYS MUST PASS BEFORE A FINAL DECISION ON THE RELOCATION IS MADE.

The Navy has moved a step closer to moving its Florida-based F/A-18 Hornets to Oceana Naval Air Station, sending to the Pentagon its draft environmental impact statement.

Tuesday's action kicks into motion a formal series of public hearings and comment periods that will determine the fate of the fighter/attack jets' proposed move.

About 175 planes in 10 squadrons, and 3,000 active-duty personnel, are scheduled to move to the Virginia Beach air station from Cecil Field, Fla., which has been ordered closed.

If approved, as expected, Oceana will become the only naval base for fighter aircraft assigned to the Atlantic Fleet. It already has about 215 F-14 Tomcats in 12 squadrons. The only other F-14 squadron in the Navy is based in Japan.

Atlantic Fleet Adm. J. Paul Reason formally released the long-awaited draft of the environmental impact statement, sending it to the Navy secretary and chief of naval operations, his office confirmed Wednesday evening.

Those offices are expected to quickly turn the 5-inch-thick document over to the Environmental Protection Agency, which will take the formal action of reading it into the Congressional Record. Once that happens, the document becomes public and a 135-day clock begins ticking toward a final decision on the move.

Until the final statement is approved by the EPA, the Navy cannot carry out the transfers.

Navy delays in preparing the report were criticized early this spring by U.S. Rep. Owen B. Pickett, who represents Virginia Beach and is concerned that the squadrons will not be able to move on time, beginning in May 1998.

Two F/A-18 squadrons scheduled to deploy in October for six months aboard the carrier George Washington would not know when they left whether they'd come home to Florida or Oceana, he said.

Reason's timing in sending the report leaves squadron members and their families barely enough time to learn their fate before the G.W. sails: The government's own rules mean that at the earliest, the EPA will announce a decision within days of the ship's deployment.

``This is a manageable time line. It is a tight time line, also,'' Capt. John Carman, a spokesman for Reason, said Wednesday.

Navy Secretary John Dalton defended Reason's office when Pickett launched his criticism in March, saying senior officers on the Atlantic Fleet staff wanted to make certain the document was prepared correctly.

The time line is this: Between the draft EIS and the final record of decision about 4 1/2 months passes.

Once the draft environmental impact statement is published in the Federal Register, a 45-day comment period must follow.

After that, there can be no fewer than 90 days before the record of decision can be issued. A portion of that 90 days can include a subsequent 30-day public comment period, also required, allowing people to comment on the final impact statement. It will include input from the previous public comment period.

In other words, 135 days is as fast as the ticker can run on the issue, from the day the draft is published in the Federal Register.

The draft's release follows the EPA's declaration earlier this month that the air above Hampton Roads does not contain unsafe levels of smog. That killed a potential hurdle to the Hornet squadrons' relocation - a bid by North Carolina to get some F/A-18s moved to the Marine Corps Air Station in Cherry Point, N.C., by stalling Hampton Roads' smog-free designation.

Cherry Point was supposed to receive some of the planes from Cecil Field under a 1993 plan approved by the Base Closure and Realignment Commission. But BRAC decided two years later to relocate all the planes, their crews and families to Oceana. North Carolina has been protesting ever since.

Some of the public hearings being scheduled by the Navy for the draft environmental impact statement are expected to take place in the Cherry Point region, as well as in Virginia Beach. No dates have been announced.

Send Suggestions or Comments to webmaster@scholar.lib.vt.edu