An estimated 1,100 naval personnel and support staff ” and potentially 1,500 more family members ” will soon be transferring to Naval Base Point Loma from Naval Station Ingleside, Texas, as a result of a mandate under the Defense Department’s 2005 Base Realignment and Closure Commission (BRAC).
The consolidation, scheduled to begin in the summer of 2008, should be complete by early 2009, according to Navy officials.
The core personnel number of 1,100 represents the active duty and government-service personnel who will work at Naval Base Point Loma, according to Cmdr. Mark Patton, commanding officer of the base.
The 2005 BRAC decision, which Congress approved on Nov. 9 of that year, involves a plan to close Naval Station Ingleside, located 20 miles northeast of Corpus Christi, Texas.
The action paved the way for personnel and eight mine warfare ships to relocate to Point Loma as part of a nationwide program to improve the efficiency of military base operations.
As part of the BRAC process, Congress has also earmarked more than $33 million for Naval Base Point Loma to fund several forthcoming construction and renovation projects designed to accommodate growth at the base.
According to Patton, the construction will be done “to relieve the pressure on Naval Base San Diego and Naval Base Coronado,” both of which are smaller than Naval Base Point Loma, where larger, excess facilities “” unused since the Cold War “” will be renovated.
“That money that BRAC has allocated is going so that we can renovate existing facilities to accommodate those folks [from Ingleside],” Patton said. “So, we are saving the Department of Defense and taxpayers $35 to $50 million by not having to construct new facilities in San Diego when we have excess ones right here in Point Loma.”
The Navy will use the funds to build only one new facility, a laboratory that will house part of the new Naval Mine and Anti-Submarine Warfare Command Center. The command center will begin its activities when Point Loma’s existing Anti-Submarine Training Center joins with the Navy’s Ingleside-based Mine Warfare Command Center.
Once in San Diego, the Mine Warfare Command Center will oversee training and operations on eight ships designed to hunt and destroy underwater mines.
Patton said he does not expect the consolidation will generate a noticeable increase in military activities off San Diego’s coast. Instead, he said these changes represent “an integration of more elements of the Navy. By bringing the mine [warfare] community and their ships, they can fully integrate into the fleet training already conducted right off our shores.” Such fleet training includes those of Point Loma’s Marine Mammal Units, which train dolphins and sea lions to perform military tasks, and the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command (SPAWAR), which develops information technology for the Navy.
The base relocation could also result in the creation of several hundred government-service, contracting and hourly-wage civilian jobs at Naval Base Point Loma, Patton said, depending on how many military personnel currently stationed at Ingleside ultimately transfer to San Diego.
However, Navy officials do not foresee a significant increase in traffic or housing needs in Point Loma, according to an environmental assessment report conducted by the Navy in July at the compulsion of the Environmental Protection Agency.
Patton said the report evaluated Navy-based traffic studies and collaborated with the city of San Diego to arrive at the conclusion, while also taking into account a separate BRAC 2005 decision to remove some personnel from Naval Base Point Loma.
The report “is a fairly extensive evaluation of the overall traffic of Point Loma, not just on Rosecrans [Street] and Catalina [Boulevard] but also at major intersections like Rosecrans, Harbor Drive and Sports Arena Boulevard,” Patton said. “The bottom line is that there is just so much traffic in Point Loma, this [influx] is literally a drop in the bucket.”
In addition to minimal shifts in traffic amounts, Navy officials are expecting some of the arriving families to seek commercial housing in the San Diego area. But with more than 10,000 military housing units in the San Diego metropolitan area ” 1,000 of which are in Point Loma ” Patton said he expects the majority of the personnel arriving from Ingleside to be absorbed by military housing and barracks.
By law, Naval Station Ingleside must close completely by Sept. 15, 2011. But according to Ingleside public affairs officer Fifi Kieschnick, the naval station plans to finish transferring personnel before Sept. 30, 2010.
“Everything is based on a certain timeline,” Kieschnick said. First, the Navy must measure the environmental impact of the transfer on Point Loma, she said.
“Once that’s in place, they can begin the construction process, and after everything is constructed, then we can start to move things,” Kieschnick said.