STATEMENT OF BRIG. GEN. WILLIAM C. CHIP, ASSISTANT QUARTERMASTER GENERAL (FACILITIES AND SERVICES), US MARINE CORPS General CHIP. I have a brief statement which I can provide for the record or if you would like, I will read it. Senator JACKSON. Why don't you just read it? General CHIP. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I am Brig. Gen. William C. Chip, Assistant Quartermaster General (facilities and services) of the Marine Corps and it is a distinct pleasure to once again appear before you to present the Marine Corps military construction authorization program. I shall, with your consent, briefly introduce the Marine Corps construction program for fiscal year 1971. The information provided by Admiral Enger on planning and programing procedures is similar to that of the Marine Corps and our facilities posture is included in the summarizations. The $284.2 million Navy request for fiscal year 1971 includes $33.5 million for Marine Corps construction items; $20.6 million or 62 percent of this amount is devoted to the satisfaction of deficiencies in our troop housing facilities. The House Armed Services Committee has denied approval for one of the two messhall items included in this category. This item will provide a modular relocatable messhall for $248,000 at the Bogue auxiliary landing field of the Marine Corps Air Station, Cherry Point. The item is urgently required to replace the field messing facilities now in use at Boque. Despite the expeditionary environment of this short airfield for tactical support (SATS) installation, the personnel operating the field are permanently assigned and field messing facilities are far from adequate except as an interim measure. We respectfully request this committee to restore this item to the program. As you know, gentlemen, the Marine Corps is a people-oriented service the marine is our greatest asset. But the marine of today is no longer just a well-trained, tough fighting man, he is also a trained technician well aware of his capabilities. If we hope to retain this capability, we must respect his right to work and live under reasonably comfortable conditions when he is not in combat. We hope, with your support, to provide such conditions. Thus, our major investment program in fiscal year 1971 is for troop housing which will continue the impetus your approval of our similar request in fiscal year 1970 gave to this endeavor. The remainder of our program consists of nine high priority, urgently required and varied facilities and five pollution abatement items. With your permission, I shall not at this time explain each line item in detail. However, I should report that, the line item for land acquisition in support of the Marine Barracks, Washington, D.C., has been included in the fiscal year 1971 program. A thorough investigation of the matter of assistance for persons to be relocated has been pursued. In this connection, we seek authorization and funding in this year's bill to permit assistance payments commensurate which those authorized by title I of the Housing Act of 1949, as amended. This can be accomplished by inclusion of the words "including special relocation costs" with this project in title II of the bill. In conclusion, I respectfully solicitate your support for our entire program and will be pleased to attempt to answer any questions you may have. Senator JACKSON. Specifically, on the Marine Barracks here in the District, I understand that there have been discussions and interviews with the people who will be relocated. Could you tell us what the state of this is, General? General CHIP. This has been pursued since the hearings of last year by the Chesapeake Division of the Naval Facilities Engineering Command. Commander Kirkpatrick of the Chesapeake Division with whom we have worked very closely, has been the project officer and since he is present I would like to call on him to discuss this subject. Commander KIRKPATRICK. We have proceeded on this problem with the assistance of the Office of the Mayor of the District of Columbia, dealing through the Redevelopment Land Agency in their Relocation Assistance Office. In February they conducted a survey of the people and the condition of their dwellings. They found nine families lived in the area. They interviewed three of them and could not get information from the other six. Senator JACKSON. I have a memorandum here from Senator Brooke and he said this construction would displace 23 families and some 100 children. Commander KIRKPATRICK. According to the Relocation Assistance Office survey of February of this year, they found only nine of the buildings occupied. They could not come up with a total count of the people but the figure of nine families is verified. The number of children would have to be estimated. Senator JACKSON. I understand we are talking about nine families? Commander KIRKPATRICK. Yes, sir. Senator JACKSON. Could we get an up-to-date report from the District on that, too? Could you submit that? Commander KIRKPATRICK. Yes, sir. Senator JACKSON. I would like to have that so we will know. First of all, get the facts so we know what we are talking about. Commander KIRKPATRICK. We could have that verified. Senator JACKSON. And they interviewed how many? Commander KIRKPATRICK. They tried to interview all nine families. They were able to contact six and obtain the information they asked for. Three families indicated they would not like to discuss the situation, and three families could not be found at home even though they returned in the evening or on Saturday. Senator JACKSON. Fine, thank you very much. I do want to get, Commander, a complete up-to-date report. What is the Mayor's recommendation on this? Commander KIRKPATRICK. We have the Mayor's recommendation which we could submit for the record. It has been submitted to Mr. River's committee in the House. The Mayor's office recommends that we seek authority, as General Chip has explained, to pay relocation assistance commensurate with title I of the Housing Act of 1949 as amended. The Mayor's office has given us estimates of how much that would cost, and that amount is included in our request. Senator JACKSON. Will you supply that for the record? tion of $1 million instead of the $1.6 million requested. Due to this restriction we have been unable to provide a proper rehabilitation program. We should have more segregation cells; we only have five We have no workshops, classrooms, exercise rooms, nor laundries in the $1 million brig facility. Senator JACKSON. What is your occupancy rate now? General CHIP. The occupancy rate at the present time is 400. General CHIP. Well, it will fluctuate, and hopefully as the Marine Corps reduces its personnel strength we won't have more than the capacity of the proposed brig which will be 350 with this request. PARRIS ISLAND, S.C. Senator JACKSON. Page 79, Marine Corps Recruitment Depot, Parris Island, S.C. This is a relatively small amount $112,000, that you are asking for a sewage treatment facility at Parris Island. I notice it is to accommodate five small outlying activities. Could you tell us what those activities are? General CHIP. Yes, sir. The first one is at Page Field, which has a 250-man NCO barracks; including a small laundromat, and aute hobby shop. The designed population has been estimated at 150 me: per day. The second is for a golf clubhouse which serves approximately 100 patrons per day. The third is at Elliot's Beach which is a training area and has head facilities. We are using it at least 4 days a week and the designed population is 500 men per day. The fourth one is for the dental annex with a design population of 20 dental technicians and 70 student classrooms. And the fifth and last is for the rifle range area with a designed population of 392 men per day. Commander PARISIUS. I wonder if I could point out in addition to taking care of those facilities, we have to make improvements at the main station plant, adding chlorination facilities to protect the shel fish in the area. Senator JACKSON. We will make that the sixth one. All right. CAMP PENDLETON, CALIF. Page 87, Marine Corps Base, Camp Pendleton, Calif. I notice this range is used for rifle familiarization firing and numerous local and military and weekend matches throughout the year. I am wondering if there is any charge for the use of these ranges? General CHIP. No, there is no charge. We do permit and encourage civilian activities such as the local police forces and organized rifle teams and so forth to use our range. We extend these privileges to them. Senator JACKSON. That has been the tradition? General CHIP. That is right and they provide their own equipment. We do though, of course, supervise the range and keep it under our own management while it is being used. This is to safeguard range facilities and users alike. Senator JACKSON. Thank you, General. I think that concludes my questions for the Marine Corps. Thank you, General. Thank you, Commander. OMEGA NAVIGATION STATION, OAHU, HAWAII We will turn now to page 94, OMEGA Navigation Station, Oahu, Hawaii. In regard to the OMEGA Station, generally what participation is there by countries other than the United States? Senator THURMOND. I have a question here, of General Chip. Senator JACKSON. General Chip, Senator Thurmond has a question. General CHIP. Yes, sir. Senator THURMOND. General Chip, what do you see as the major unmet needs of the Marine construction program at this time? General CHIP. Our major unmet needs in construction, Senator, are in personnel support facilities. The Marine Corps has identified a $1.2 billion requirement for construction in the Marine Corps over the next 10 years. And of that total approximately $400 million is in personnel support facilities. In this year's program we have devoted 62 percent of the total to help satisfy this requirement. The Commandant of the Marine Corps has directed that at least 50 percent of our annual program be devoted to personnel support facilities to try to reduce this large backlog of construction requirements for barracks, BEQ's, BOQ's, and messhalls. Senator THURMOND. Thank you. General Chip, in your statement I believe you said the House had deleted the modular relocatable messhall project? General CHIP. Yes, sir. Senator THURMOND. Would you describe this project in a little more detail? General CHIP. As you are aware, sir, Bogue Field is an expeditionary field which is part of the Marine Corps Air Station at Cherry Point. This line item is required to replace an existing temporary wood frame messhall which is located at Bogue Field. The medical authorities have examined mess operations and have determined that the existing mess facilities are inadequate for the maintenance of minimal health standards. Our inspector general has also been there and found this messhall to be unsatisfactory. We have made temporary repairs in order to keep it operating but they won't do except as an interim measure. It is an old, antiquated building that was built out of spare materials from Cherry Point and Camp Lejeune. It is in very poor condition and needs replacement. This is an urgent item if we are going to maintain and operate Bogue Field. Another thing about this proposed messhall, that is it is modular and relocatable. If the time came that we had to leave Bogue Field we could take that messhall with us. In fact, all of our construction at Bogue Field is modular relocatable, except the fiscal year 1970 utilities project which incidentally will also serve this messhall. Last year the bill included a warehouse and a combat vehicle maintenance facility. All of these facilities once again are relocatable, including the barracks that was constructed a year ago. Senator THURMOND. So these buildings could be moved elsewhere without any trouble? General CHIP. That is correct. Senator THURMOND. And the Marine Corps, I understand, does put priority on this messhall. General CHIP. They do. Senator THURMOND. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Senator JACKSON. General, you are excused again. Page 94, the OMEGA Navigation Station, Oahu, Hawaii. In regard to the OMEGA Station, generally what participation is there by countries other than the United States in this program? Admiral ENGER. I will call on Captain Burke, to discuss this project. Captain BURKE. I am Captain Burke, Naval Electronics Systems Command. Through the Department of State, we are actively negotiating with Norway, France, Argentina, and Japan for foreign stations and have also approached Australia after preliminary technical discussions. We are not formally negotiating with Australia at this time, however. Senator JACKSON. Do they help fund these stations? Captain BURKE. Yes. Senator JACKSON. They participate? Captain BURKE. Yes, sir. Senator JACKSON. What about the operation? Captain BURKE. They will continue the operation and maintenance of the station as well as participating in the initial funding. Senator JACKSON. In other words, they put money into the capital cost and this is a joint operation, a bilateral arrangement. Captain BURKE. It is a bilateral arrangement. In each case they are providing the land and are participating in the installation costs and will in every case provide the operation and maintenance. Senator JACKSON. They will pay that themselves? Captain BURKE. Yes, sir. Senator JACKSON. In other words, the main thing we will get out of it then will be the operation and maintenance. Captain BURKE. And in some cases a major portion of the installation cost. Senator JACKSON. That depends on the negotiation agreement. Captain BURKE. Yes, sir; this varies from country to country. Senator JACKSON. Yes. I think that answers it. You might supply for the record the estimated cost of these stations and the present state of the negotiations, just to have that for the record, if you would. Capain BURKE. Yes, sir. (The information follows:) STATUS OF FOREIGN NEGOTIATIONS General. Five or six of the eight transmitter stations for global OMEGA coverage will be operated by foreign countries. This arrangement obviates the problem of securing and maintaining base-rights agreements. Foreign particips tion will also reduce costs to the U.S. by at least $10 million for initial investment and about $1.5 million annually for operations. To obtain the needed agree ments with foreign countries the U.S. has engaged in a program over the last three years of explaining OMEGA to prospective partner countries, conducting cooperative technical studies, and discussing possible financial arrangements prior to formal negotiations of agreements. Each station will cost approximately 4 to 5 million dollars in addition to U.S. provided electronics equipment. Japan. The State Department authorized the U.S. Embassy, Tokyo, to transmit a draft agreement to Japan on 1 April 1970. This draft is the result of long term negotiations and is expected to be near the final form. In the interim the Japanese are completing engineering. Station construction will begin in 1970. Except for U.S. electronics, the station is entirely financed by the Japanese. |