Keep Quake Lab in Quake Land

Years ago, the federal government decided to build a national earthquake institute not in California, the focal point of seismic activity in the United States, but in upstate New York, where earthquakes rarely happen. Now, federal officials have the opportunity to show better judgment.

Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt has ordered the U.S. Geological Survey to move its regional headquarters out of its 16-acre campus in Menlo Park, south of San Francisco, where it first located in 1955. Babbitt wants the survey to find more modest quarters in some area where real estate values are not accelerating.

The survey’s facilities include all of its earthquake monitoring equipment and its superb seismology research laboratory. About 800 employees will be affected. The 250 earthquake scientists fear they will lose their close working relationships with nearby Stanford University and UC Berkeley.

One official said that Babbitt “knows perfectly well where the San Andreas fault is” and does not intend to move the seismic facilities out of California.

There was speculation, however, that those who deal with volcano hazards might go to the USGS volcano observatory in Vancouver, Wash., and that other functions might be sent to Reno, Spokane or Tucson.

Sacramento was listed as one likely alternative. Land costs are lower there than in the Bay Area, and property is available at nearby McClellan Air Force Base, which is being closed. Also, Sacramento is far less vulnerable to a giant quake than the Bay Area. If that big one ever hits, it would be nice to know that the earthquake lab remains up and running.