General Challenges Navy Cost Estimate on Closing El Toro

Continuing to question the Pentagon’s plan to close the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station, Marine Maj. Gen. P. Drax Williams told a member of the Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission on Wednesday that the Navy seriously underestimated the cost of moving Marines based here and at Tustin to the Miramar Naval Air Station in San Diego.

Although local base officials have yet to finish their cost estimates, Williams, commander of all Marine air operations on the West Coast, said the final figures will show that the $340 million budgeted by the Pentagon for construction work needed at Miramar to accommodate the El Toro and Tustin Marines is far from adequate to match the existing facilities at El Toro and the Tustin Marine Corps Air Station, which is scheduled to close in 1997.

“If we can get the . . . construction funds required to have something close to what we currently have at El Toro and Tustin, then there’s nothing wrong from a military standpoint with this move,” Williams told Commissioner Peter B. Bowman, who was touring the base after the third and final day of base closure hearings in California.

“The question is, can we get that funding? If we don’t, we will not be as operationally effective as we are now,” Williams said.

The base commander’s comments to the commissioner gave a boost to South County residents trying to persuade the federal panel that El Toro’s closure would be a waste of tax dollars. They estimate the cost of building new facilities at Miramar at roughly $1.2 billion, not the $340 million projected by the Navy.

Questioned later about the $1.2-billion construction cost estimate advanced by the citizens group, Williams said the estimates being developed by his staff “will be much closer to their figures than to (the Pentagon’s) figures.”

If the higher estimate is correct, that would drive up the total cost of the realignment of Marine operations on the West Coast--including the closure of El Toro--from the Navy’s official estimate of $898 million to about $1.8 billion.

During a meeting with Bowman that preceded the commissioner’s tour of the base, Williams also raised questions about the Pentagon’s assessment of housing needs for the Marines in Miramar.

He said the Pentagon’s cost estimates did not include $30 million that will have to be spent each year in housing allowances because of a shortage of on-base housing at Miramar. El Toro has 2,700 housing units on base, compared to only 300 at Miramar.

“It does not take too many years at $30 million before you eat up any savings,” he told Bowman.

The meeting afforded opponents of the closing a second chance in as many days to lobby their case. During the formal public hearing over El Toro’s fate in San Diego on Tuesday, opponents of the planned closing were cut off before they had made their full presentation, because they exceeded their one-hour time limit.

But those who favor the closing, headed by representatives of Newport Beach, were also given a place at the table.

Newport Beach wants the base closed so that it can be converted into a commercial airport and alleviate the demands on John Wayne Airport. But most of the El Toro supporters in the South County fear that an airport will be a major noise polluter.

A brief exchange between the two sides erupted during the meeting Wednesday when Newport Beach Mayor Clarence J. Turner asked, “If you don’t go to Miramar, will you then be able to bring (that mission) to El Toro?”

Bowman offered few comments during the meeting, which was moderated by Rep. Christopher Cox (R-Newport Beach), but he took notes as El Toro supporters and county staffers discussed the housing disparity at the two bases, and whether helicopters and jets could safely share the same air space.

When one county staffer said it was unlikely that the Navy could build 1.2 million square feet of maintenance hangars for $60 million, Bowman said, “I did a little bit of math too.”

During the tour, Bowman was shown maintenance and training facilities that are not in existence or would have to be remodeled at Miramar, since many of its operations are conducted on ships.

Usually remaining poker-faced, the commissioners have offered few hints about their leanings on some of the base closure recommendations. But given the weight of testimony during hearings in Northern California, they indicated a willingness to take another look at Alameda Naval Air Station and McClellan Air Force Base in Sacramento, which are on the list of bases to be closed.

Commissioners could not make similar comments about El Toro, Bowman said during his news conference here, because “some choices are obvious and others are not.” Alameda’s case is more obvious, he explained, because an alternative may be available, such as discontinuing the planned construction of naval facilities in Everett, Wash.

But because El Toro’s closure is part of a realignment that affects several installations, “right now, there’s not any clear choice,” Bowman added.

Still, the commissioner said he was impressed by Irvine City Councilman William A. (Art) Bloomer’s testimony Tuesday, when he compared the plan to fit the Marines at Miramar to trying to “put 11 pounds into a three-pound bag.”

It “gets our attention when somebody says that,” Bowman added.