Quake Agency Won’t Leave State, Chief Says

Amid a furor over his orders to prepare for moving hundreds of federal earthquake scientists out of the Bay Area, the director of the U.S. Geological Survey pledged Wednesday that they will not be moved out of California.

Gordon P. Eaton said in a staff memo last week that Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt wanted the relocation because rents and other costs of living are soaring in the Bay Area.

But Eaton expressed surprise Wednesday at the vehement negative reaction of the resident scientists to the planned move, and he said perhaps it will not be as complete or as quick as the memo indicated.

He added that Sacramento and Davis are prime possibilities for relocating quake scientists from the Geological Survey’s Western regional office in Menlo Park.

He added that the survey has no plans to move its small staff out of Pasadena, where it has an office across the street from the Caltech Seismological Laboratory.

Still, Eaton’s suggestion of Sacramento and Davis as new locales for most of his 450 geological employees in California was not well received by the scientists.

Ross Stein, a senior quake scientist at Menlo Park, said it is far better for the scientists to stay where the dangers are--close to the San Andreas fault.

“Sacramento is far from the hazards,” Stein said. “We have been focusing more and more of our energies on urban earthquake dangers, because that’s where the exposure is and that’s where the losses will be.”

Besides, he added, the Menlo Park headquarters has extensive cooperative arrangements with Stanford, UC Berkeley and the Pacific Gas & Electric utility. Those would suffer if the agency moved to the Central Valley, he said.

In Washington, a spokeswoman for Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), said the lawmaker is planning to send a letter to Babbitt opposing any move of scientists out of the Bay Area, which is considered to hold the state’s greatest risk for a devastating quake.

One option, suggested Feinstein aide Susan Kennedy, would be to house the scientists at one of the Bay Area’s several abandoned military bases.

Eaton, in an interview, suggested that like it or not, the Geological Survey’s budget is diminishing and it can no longer afford the Bay Area. Officials suspect that the rents at Menlo Park could rise by $2 million a year.

Young scientists being recruited by the agency can’t afford to move there, Eaton said.

Still, some scientists say Washington officials may have a hidden agenda in advancing a move. Menlo Park is a huge facility, filled with outspoken veterans, and is often seen as the tail that wags the dog back in Washington. They say Babbitt and Eaton may want to encourage the older scientists to retire.

As plans for the move were announced, the survey unveiled a new buyout plan and gave scientists until Sept. 19 to accept it.

Eaton called the timing of the offer coincidental.