Navy’s Cuts Apparently Spare County’s 2 Bases : Defense: Sources say the first-round ‘hit list’ does not include Point Mugu or Port Hueneme facilities, but leaders are still wary.

The Point Mugu and Port Hueneme Navy bases have survived the first round of cuts in the lengthy base-closure process as the Pentagon prepares its final list of recommended installations to shut down, military sources have told The Times.

In this early but important round, the sources said, the Navy has decided to keep both Ventura County bases off its recommended “hit list” of installations no longer needed in the post-Cold War era.

Traditionally, military bases not targeted at this stage rarely become part of the bloodletting in the periodic effort to close military installations that siphon defense dollars needed for modernizing the armed services.

Although the bases themselves appear secure for now, the colorful local Navy outfit that shuttles scientists to Antarctica faces a threat of losing its mission and its 558-person payroll to the New York Air National Guard.

New York’s congressional delegation has been working quietly to transfer Operation Deep Freeze to a guard unit at Schenectady Airport. But Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) caught on to their game plan last week and lined up several California congressmen to help defend the Port Hueneme-based outfit and its squadron of cargo planes and helicopters at Point Mugu.

Overall, local leaders cheered the promising news for the county’s Navy bases, but warned that their fate could turn at any point in the multi-step process that extends until September. County leaders urged continued diligence in defending the military installations and their 20,000 related jobs.

“Right now, things look pretty good. Next week, things could look horrible,” said county Supervisor John K. Flynn. “Without overreacting, we have to have an arsenal of information ready to defend the bases.”

Defense Secretary William Perry, who is now scrutinizing and compiling the lists from the Army, Navy and Air Force, has the authority to add the county’s bases to the official Pentagon hit list.

Once Perry forwards the recommendations to the Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission, the commissioners could still decide to mothball both bases or lop off portions of them.

Yet commissioners in the previous base-closure rounds have closely followed the Pentagon’s recommendations.

*

And Perry, who recently scaled back his ambitious goal of an overall 15% reduction, is running out of time to overhaul the Navy’s suggested cuts--a scenario based on months of analysis of every U.S. Naval facility. He plans to release his final recommendations on Feb. 28.

“It’s not over until it’s over, but we have not heard anything that would give us cause for concern,” Gallegly said.

Although the Navy’s list remains secret, military sources said the Long Beach Naval Shipyard and the Seal Beach Naval Weapons Station have popped up as potential targets for shutdown in California.

Sources said military leaders are also scrutinizing the Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego, the West Coast boot camp for the Marines. If it were to close over Marine Corps objections, Paris Island, S.C., would be the Marines’ only remaining boot camp.

The Navy not only left Ventura County’s bases largely undisturbed, but it also may have set them up to receive the spoils from other bases targeted for closure, sources said.

Point Mugu’s Naval Air Warfare Center, Weapons Division, for instance, was recently asked if it could take on a squadron of F/A-18 Hornet jet fighters. The Naval Air Warfare Center, the principal operation at Point Mugu, tests missiles and other weaponry used by Navy aircraft.

*

The Naval Surface Warfare Center at Port Hueneme also may be in line to pick up the operations--and jobs--of small Navy installations in Corona, Calif., Indianapolis, Ind., and Indian Head, Md. As the second-largest organization on the Port Hueneme Seabee base, the Naval Surface Warfare Center trouble-shoots computer glitches in shipboard weapons.

Some state leaders fear that any potential expansion of California military bases could be snared by clean-air laws that can block new ventures in areas that exceed health standards for air pollution.

Gov. Pete Wilson hopes to meet with Defense Secretary Perry this week to assure him that California bases can handle extra military duties, said Judy Ann Miller, the governor’s director of military base retention.

“We are saying, we can add missions and still keep within our environmental guidelines,” she said.

Similar environmental concerns surfaced involving the missile-test range in the waters off Point Mugu.

Federal plans to clean up the county’s smog call for diverting oil tankers and large freighters farther from the coast to prevent the ships’ exhaust from blowing onshore.

Yet some newly proposed routes would send ships into the middle of Point Mugu’s sea-test range--36,000 square miles of restricted ocean and airspace used daily to test-fire missiles and other weapons.

*

Navy officials say the ships would disrupt their weapons tests. And local base supporters fear it would mar one of Point Mugu’s most attractive features--a massive missile test range that is remarkably free from civilian intrusion.

But the continuing negotiations between environmental officials and the Navy have not made Point Mugu a target for base closure.

Ventura County’s BRAC ’95 Task Force, a group set up to defend the bases, has been most concerned about the future of Point Mugu because of a widely acknowledged need to consolidate military facilities that test weapons.

The Pentagon set up special task forces to combine Army, Navy and Air Force weapons testing programs and consolidate other overlapping programs.

But the groups met stiff resistance from the services and have not made the sweeping inter-service changes originally sought.

“They have had a tough time doing things, and they are running out of time,” said Bob Conroy, a well-connected defense industry executive in Camarillo who has spoken with one cross-service group member.

One controversial report from the Defense Department’s inspector general recommended shutting down Point Mugu and moving most of its missile-testing operations to its sister base at China Lake in the upper Mojave Desert.

*

Since the report’s disclosure, a top Pentagon official said its recommendations cannot be used by the Navy or other Defense Department officials as a basis for targeting Point Mugu.

One booster of the Naval Air Weapons Station at China Lake points out that the independent base-closing commission has no such restrictions. He said he would not be surprised to see the inspector general’s report, despite its flaws and erroneous information, resurface during the commission’s deliberations.

Even if the Ventura bases do not appear on the Pentagon hit list, the commission could add them for consideration midway through the process, particularly if a rival base brings up potentially damaging documents.

By July 1, the commission must forward its list to the President for approval. The President can send it back to the commission for revision or pass it along to Congress for final approval. To keep parochial politics out of the base-closing decisions, Congress must accept or reject the entire list within 45 days. It cannot add or remove any bases.

Meanwhile, the BRAC ’95 Task Force has remained vigilant in promoting the Point Mugu and Port Hueneme bases and their value to the nation’s military.

*

The group has about $70,000 remaining of the $220,000 it has raised to pay for a top-notch Washington, D.C., lobbyist and send task force members on lobbying trips to the nation’s capital.

Supervisor Maggie Kildee on Friday made the rounds on Capitol Hill and in the Pentagon on behalf of the county’s naval installations. She also visited staff at the Base Closure and Realignment Commission who will be compiling data and advising commissioners on their difficult decisions.

Over the next few weeks, other community leaders will jet to Washington to demonstrate the community’s ongoing support.

“There is certainly no doubt within any of the services that Point Mugu and Port Hueneme have a community that is solidly behind them,” said Cal Carerra, director of western operations for a Virginia-based defense firm and co-chairman of the county’s BRAC ’95 Task Force.

Furthermore, a local group of defense experts has been ferreting data on potentially competing bases and preparing defensive arguments just in case either Point Mugu or Port Hueneme gets picked up on a hit list.

“We hope that this is all for naught and we are wasting our time,” said Ted Rains, a member of the group who recently retired as technical director of the Naval Surface Warfare Center at Port Hueneme.

Rains said he has been volunteering about 20 hours a week to work up defensive scenarios with other experts, including retired Adm. Ed Barrineau, a defense industry executive in Camarillo and former commander of Point Mugu.

“We just want to make sure,” he said, “we’ve done all the pre-planning we can do.”