THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, March 2, 1995 TAG: 9503020499
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DALE EISMAN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium: 78 lines
The Navy's new plan to base its entire inventory of F-14 Tomcat jets at Oceana should prompt a reconsideration of a decision to close the Norfolk depot that specializes in servicing those planes, U.S. Sen. Charles S. Robb said Wednesday.
But Navy Secretary John H. Dalton seemed decidedly cool to the suggestion.
Robb, a Democrat, told reporters that NADEP - the Norfolk Naval Aviation Depot - could be preserved or perhaps made part of a regional maintenance installation for equipment owned by all the services in Hampton Roads.
``There is a pretty compelling argument . . . for having the rework facility in the area'' where the planes are based, Robb said.
Base closing and realignment recommendations released by the Pentagon on Tuesday were good news for Oceana Naval Air Station, in Virginia Beach. But they include no mention of the Norfolk depot, which a 1993 commission decided should be closed. Under the base closing law, only the '95 commission can overrule decisions made by the '93 panel.
The services have asked that several other 1993 BRAC decisions be revisited. Robb said that when he spoke to Dalton on Tuesday, the secretary ``very diplomatically'' voiced a willingness to listen to new arguments on NADEP as well.
But in a telephone interview later that day, Dalton said the Navy will not seek any BRAC reconsiderations other than those already announced.
Even so, Robb said Wednesday the door is cracked open for the '95 commission to act on its own to revive the Norfolk depot if a case can be made for it. He added that he won't press ahead unless he's satisfied that the move would produce a savings for taxpayers.
Scott Jones, a Navy commander working in Robb's office as part of a special fellowship program, said that with the Pentagon pushing for more inter-service cooperation, the skills of remaining NADEP workers might be used to maintain a variety of Air Force and Army equipment as well as Navy jets.
A NADEP industrial specialist who asked to remain anonymous said: ``It makes plain old horse sense to have maintenance capability in the area.'' Since shortly after the depot was ordered closed, there has been talk of converting it into some sort of cross-service regional maintenance facility, he said.
About 1,300 former NADEP workers already have found other jobs, many at depots in Jacksonville, Fla., and Cherry Point, N.C. At the time of the 1993 closure order, NADEP employed about 4,300 people.
Robb's comments on the depot came as the 1995 BRAC, or its chairman at least, opened hearings on base closing and realignment plans released by the services Tuesday.
Former Illinois Sen. Alan J. Dixon, selected in the fall to head the 1995 BRAC, sat alone at a huge committee table for the initial hearing. Seven other prospective commissioners were in the audience, unable to participate because the Senate has not voted to confirm them.
Dixon pressed Defense Secretary William J. Perry and his top deputy, John M. Deutch, for an explanation of why their recommendations don't include consolidations of any Air Force and Navy repair depots. There had been speculation that the Pentagon would seek at least one such joint facility, in part to test the ability of crews from the different branches to work together in servicing planes.
Deutch said that the services remain resistant to the idea of a joint depot and other expansions of cross-servicing. He said that he and Perry ultimately decided they should not try to force the change now.
Helped by gentle questioning from Dixon, Perry also sought again Wednesday to blunt Republican charges that the Clinton administration limited base closing proposals this year for political reasons.
Perry said that all of the planned closures and realignments he released on Tuesday were proposed by uniformed leaders of the services.
``We gave very intense guidance to the services . . . but in the last analysis . . . the services were free to make the recommendations they made,'' he said.
KEYWORDS: BASE CLOSINGS MILITARY BASES by CNB