Veterans may get Alameda acreage
Point land earmarked for refuge may be home for VA mausoleum, clinic

By Susan McDonough, Staff Writer, Inside Bay Area
July 13, 2005

ALAMEDA - A U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs official has confirmed that the agency is negotiating for control of about 600 acres at Alameda Point originally intended as a national wildlife refuge.

Veterans Affairs wants to build a mausoleum and health care center on the property but has indicated it would retain nesting grounds for the endangered California least terns.

The birds return by the hundreds every April to what was once a jet landing strip on the former Alameda Naval Air Station to breed, lay eggs and raise their chicks in the weedy, cracked asphalt.

Before the Navy base closed in 1997, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service petitioned its interest in the 600 acres and drew support from nature enthusiasts and hundreds of other local residents who wanted to see a generous portion of the redeveloped base reserved as open space.

But talks between the U.S. Navy and the environmental agency began to fall apart over cleanup issues as far back as September 1999.

Jill Votaw , a representative of the U.S. Navy's Base Realignment and Closure San Diego office, said last week the Navy is now considering granting the western section of the closed base to Veterans Affairs under a federal land swap agreement.

A representative for the Fishand Wildlife Service could not be reached Tuesday.

Meanwhile, the city continues its own negotiations with the Navy for about 1,600 acres on the eastern and northern portions of Alameda Point.

Those talks also had stalled over cleanup disputes.

Alameda is awaiting approval of a new plan that would transfer only a portion of the land - about 400 acres around the former parade grounds - to the city by next year.

City Councilman Doug deHaan said a Veterans Affairs clinic at Alameda Point could bring additional traffic to the Island - a big concern to citizens engaged in the process of developing Alameda Point. But he doesn't see it as significant.

Other than that, he said that whether there is a wildlife refuge on the western edge of the base or a clinic would have little bearing on the city's plan to rebuild Alameda Point.

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