Novato's dispute with Navy turns dirty

By Con Garretson, IJ reporter

Tuesday, March 01, 2005 - Novato has a dirt dilemma, and the city's top administrator believes it might be motivated by dirty politics.

The city is under a March 11 deadline from the U.S. Navy to move 16,000 cubic yards of dirt off a 14-acre parcel at Hamilton Field. The Navy needs to get to the ground underneath the dirt for environmental testing tied to the transfer of the land to the state Coastal Conservancy for a major wetlands restoration project.

The dirt was excavated in 1999 during construction of the nearby Southgate residential development. It was set aside to shore up a levee to separate the homes from old airfields that eventually will be flooded and become part of the San Pablo Bay ecosystem.

City officials have failed in their attempts to unload the dirt, receiving no takers when they reached out to contractors through advertising and other means. Bids were solicited for a dirt removal project and the lowest came in at $65,000.

The Novato City Council early last month approved the money for the project, but City Manager Dan Keen said he is exploring other options before the city - which is facing major budget problems - has to make what he deems an unnecessary expenditure. He would not discuss specifically what he is considering other than what would be the "most prudent move for the city."

Keen speculated that Navy officials were using the dirt issue to get back at the city on an unrelated land deal gone bad, something a representative for the Navy base conversion process flatly denies.

Keen said the dirt is hardened from winter rains and overgrown with weeds. The city planned to use the dirt for the levee work later this year, far in advance of the flooding of the parcel at issue, he said.

City officials have explored and suggested several methods to allow the Navy to do its work without removing the dirt, but they say the Navy has rejected their ideas.

Keen said he believes the Navy's unwillingness to consider a deadline extension or alternative methods to allow the ground testing is based on anger over the city's unwillingness to accept a Navy parcel from another part of Hamilton Field.

"If that is the case, it is outrageous public policy," Keen said of his retribution theory. "We work for the taxpayers and they work for the taxpayers, and I think it would be more cost-effective to find another way to accomplish what they need to do without causing us this expense."

Novato was set to purchase a former gas station on C Street from the Navy last year; however, a dispute arose about the level of environmental cleanup work that was done. The city argued the parcel needed more cleanup work in light of a well-documented problem with an underground plume of a gasoline additive from leaking storage tanks.

The Navy, contending it had done its required work, issued the city an ultimatum on the $800,000 gas station transfer. The city opted to break escrow on what was to be the final transaction as part of an historic military-to-municipality land transfer deal.

The Navy, through the U.S. General Administration Agency, sold the 2.3-acre gas station parcel in an on-line auction. The identity of the top bidder will not be released until the $900,000 winning bid is paid, a transaction that is expected to be completed next month. The new owner will have limitations on site uses and any work must receive approval from the city and environmental regulators.

The dirt deadline has nothing to do with the broken escrow issue, according to Jennifer Valenzia, environmental coordinator with the Navy's base realignment and closure program.

"There is not any retaliation," she said. "We contemplated all the permutations but we concluded what worked best is that the dirt not be there."

Keen said all of his appeals to date have been through the office of Valenzia, a civilian. He said he has reason to believe Navy officials are using the dirt as a political tool to get back at Novato.

The Navy wants to determine whether jet fuel from aircraft that had been stored under the dirt had gotten into the groundsoil. The need for such testing would be moot if it turns out there is asphalt under the city dirt, said Valenzia, who rejected the idea of boring through the dirt mound or taking up a city offer to do the environmental assessment.

Keen said the city has discussed possible solutions for the dirt issue with the Coastal Conservancy. They include moving the dirt to an adjoining parcel it has already received from the Navy and allowing the dirt to be incorporated into the wetlands project. Millions of cubic yards of bay dredging are to be imported to Hamilton Field in the coming years for the project.

Tom Gandesbery, a project manager with the Coastal Conservancy, said the city dirt is sitting on the final parcel of 2,600 total acres that has been transferred from the military. The movement of the dirt is not a priority for his agency, he said.

"We don't need the property right away," Gandesbery said. "Under our time lines with the Navy, we're supposed to get that parcel by June 2006. From our perspective, it doesn't make much difference when we get that land because it won't be flooded for some time and we have plenty of work left to do elsewhere in the project area."

Contact Con Garretson via e-mail at cgarretson@marinij.com

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