Agency announces ‘no practical alternative’ for homeport site



For the second time in seven months, folks were figuratively dancing on the docks as National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) officials reaffirmed their decision to make Newport the place to homeport the agency’s Pacific research fleet.

NOAA announced Tuesday that - based on a recommended reassessment of three other proposals by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) - “there appears to be no practicable alternative to the Port of Newport offer.”

NOAA first chose Newport over three sites in Washington - Lake Union (Seattle), Bellingham, and Port Angeles - last August, and signed a lease with Port of Newport officials to have a ready-to-use facility in place by May 31, 2011. Since then, Washington officials at the local, state and federal levels have raised a ruckus about the process, initiating a wave of political parry-and-thrust between Washington and Oregon federal and state delegations.

U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), who chairs the Senate Subcomittee that oversees NOAA and has led the charge in questioning NOAA’s selection of Newport, upped the ante during a March 3 NOAA budget hearing, calling for a halt of on-going work at the Newport site, and for Department of Commerce Inspector General Todd Zinser to audit the bidding process NOAA used to reach its decision.

GAO did not recommend a work stoppage, and neither has NOAA, but the agency did follow GAO’s recommendations to conduct an assessment of “practicable alternatives” and a separate assessment of potential floodplain impacts at the Newport site.

In upholding a Port of Bellingham protest, the GAO established a process for NOAA to follow in reviewing the decision, including a reassessment of the other three contenders. Based on that analysis, NOAA officials decided that no practical alternative exists to the Newport site among the three contenders, and cited specific reasons for making the determination.



No better choice

According to NOAA’s analysis, sites proposed by the Port of Bellingham and Port of Port Angeles are “located in a base floodplain” as determined by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), ruling them out as practical alternatives.

“Bellingham and Port Angeles offered proposals that earned lower technical ratings than Newport’s proposal, and offered higher prices,” the NOAA analysis stated. Bellingham’s proposal “also significantly exceeded the prospectus threshold,” and would ultimately have been considered a capital lease - two more factors that eliminate Bellingham as a viable alternative. The Lake Union (Seattle) proposal “earned a lower technical rating” than Newport, and “offered a significantly higher price.” Like Bellingham, the Lake Union proposal “significantly exceeded the prospectus threshold” and would also have been considered a capital lease, rendering it non-viable as an alternate location.

The NOAA analysis also outlined steps Port of Newport officials and project engineers are taking to minimize or avoid potential floodplain impacts at the site.

The piers are located in Yaquina Bay within the base floodplain, but the interim pier design “is likely to adequately resist damage from severe coastal flooding” by placing the pier deck above the base flood elevation, and reducing the number of piles by increasing their size, and “reducing the potential for trapping debris under the pier,” the NOAA analysis concluded.

The plans also focus on placing the upland buildings at least a foot above base flood elevation using methods that comply with Newport’s floodplain management ordinance standards to minimize the risk of flood damage, or outside the annual chance (0.2 percent) floodplain.



Mixed reactions

NOAA’s announcement drew mixed reviews.

“This is great news for Newport, great news for our coast, and great news for the region,” U.S. Rep. Kurt Schrader (D-Ore.) said in a written statement issued Tuesday afternoon, noting the announcement “confirms what we have known from the very beginning - that Newport is the top site in terms of technical merit, and in terms of cost for NOAA, Newport, and American taxpayers.”

NOAA, Schrader added, has “continued to pursue this fair and open process in spite of attempted politicization.”

Newport, he concluded, would soon provide the new home for the NOAA Pacific fleet, and the foundation for hundreds of jobs and economic development opportunities and effects that would ripple beyond the central Oregon coast.

Cantwell released a statement saying she is “disappointed but not surprised that NOAA has decided to protect its previous claim that there is no practicable alternative to home porting its Marine Operations Center - Pacific (MOC-P) fleet in Newport, Oregon.”

She said she’s confident that Zinser “will take a more thorough and serious look” at the issue.

“This is taxpayer money on the line,” Cantwell said, noting that “it would be a prudent step for NOAA to cease all operations” at the Newport site.

“I believe what’s called for now is for NOAA to do a full environmental impact statement,” she stated. “I expressed concern before, and I reiterate it now, that for this process to be impartial, it should not be conducted by those same people who conducted the original flawed competition. If it is...I fear we will see brazen attempts to preserve the award to Newport rather than any real effort to comply with the spirit GAO’s recommendations and Executive Order 11988.”

Port of Newport General Manager Don Mann called NOAA’s reassessment “a good analysis based on facts in what has been a very transparent process.”

Newport, he and other4s contend, offered the best overall proposal, and earned the NOAA nod based on merit.





Terry Dillman is the assistant editor of the News-Times. Contact him at (541) 265-8571, ext 225, or terrydillman@newportnewstimes.com.





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