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Photograph by George Sakkestad

Elaine White Alquist would like to see Moffett used as a control center during disasters.

Moffett Field may be in store for disaster

By Steve Enders

They couldn't have picked a better time for their announcement.

With El Niño storms blowing at full force outside, city and state government leaders announced last week the creation of a bill that, if passed, will establish the California Disaster Mitigation Center at Onizuka Air Station.

Councilwomen Pat Vorreiter and Julia Miller stood alongside Assemblywoman Elaine White Alquist (D-Santa Clara) as she announced the bill, AB1738.

The center is already partly up and running as an arm of the National Disaster Information Network. If Alquist's bill is signed into law, the center would become the research, development and information technology headquarters of the project.

Also, two weeks ago, Vorreiter told the City Council that VP-91--the Naval Reserve rescue unit--was recently ranked No. 1 among all such defense-conversion projects in the state to continue to receive funding from the federal government.

The Department of Defense has ordered VP-91 to be decommissioned in light of the end of the Cold War. It's the unit that was responsible for hunting Soviet submarines off the California coast.

Vorreiter is Sunnyvale's liaison with the Silicon Valley Defense/Space Consortium, the group dedicated to helping local high-tech firms in defense conversion and space projects.

NASA/Ames runs the Moffett complex and is experiencing a budget shortfall that it can't continue to bear much longer, she said.

"They aren't interested in running an airfield. Their job is to pursue research and space projects," Vorreiter said.

She said the city is lobbying vigorously to get VP-91 to stay for one more year, because it brings in about $2 million for NASA. If VP-91 leaves, NASA will have to lease the space to another agency--one that may have an obtrusive use, like air cargo.

If the city can get VP-91 to stay, that buys some needed time for groups such as the Community Advisory Committee (CAC) to lobby the government to allow NASA to fill VP-91's space permanently with an organization whose use does not negatively impact area residents.

Also, with NASA running Moffett in the red at more than $3 million a year, it wants projects that are going to make money for the complex.

The CAC is made up of citizens and government leaders from Sunnyvale and Mountain View.

"NASA/Ames is developing a work plan with the CAC to determine which suggestions are viable and which will generate revenue, and to prevent the airfield from leaving federal ownership," Vorreiter said. "VP-91 brings in $2 million a year, and NASA would have to pick that up if they left."

Some of the suggestions the CAC is proposing include an air and space museum, a technology visitors center and a film studio.

The city pays lobbyists $240,000 a year to push the uses that it would like to see at Moffett. The lobbyists have been instrumental, Vorreiter says, in getting the VP-91 ranking, as well as getting legislators to look into establishing programs like the disaster center.

"They've been extremely helpful in all issues related to the Moffett federal complex," Vorreiter said.

Lobbyists, like John Scruggs in Washington, D.C., said the city needs someone close to government to make sure the void is filled when Onizuka does eventually leave.

At Tuesday's City Council meeting, Tim Quigly, director of the Defense/Space Consortium, gave a brief update on the realignment of Onizuka.

Already operating, he said, are four prototype projects to demonstrate the effectiveness of the Western Disaster Center.

The projects include the El Niño Contingency Planning project, Project Sanctuary, Project GEO and Project Quake. These projects deal with potential disaster issues such as weather phenomena, earthquakes and oil spills.

Onizuka is important to the disaster center equation because of its state-of-the-art high-speed satellite control and communications network.

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This article appeared in the Sunnyvale Sun, February 18, 1998.
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