Congressman Chris Smith said the Navy’s issuance of a record of decision (ROD) for a plan to build a public road to the Laurelwood Housing Area on Earle Naval Weapons Station is yet another in a series of mistakes at Navy Earle.

    “This record of decision is flawed and this entire process has been flawed,” Smith said. “The impact of the local school district is grossly understated. By the Navy’s own reckoning, the homes produced 330 students from military families, but the Navy ROD assumes only 145 students from civilian renters and calls that ‘equivalent.’ The taxpayer will pay much more than they do now.”

    Smith said if the road is built, Earle’s security would be impacted and Laurelwood would hardly be a normal residential development.

    “We’re talking about a munitions depot here,” Smith said. “We’re in the post-9/11 and post-Fort Dix Six plot era. A public road in the heart of a weapons depot is a foolhardy idea the Navy seems intent on doing. Laurelwood Housing will be 300 homes inside the base surrounded by barbed-wire and fencing and patrolled by MPs or contracted police.

    “The Navy’s decision today reveals that the Navy could have settled this in 2002 at a cost of $29 million or possibly less,” Smith said. “Instead, the Navy declined and has spent $3.5 million year-after-year to maintain essentially empty houses. All the studies, all the public meetings, all the turmoil it has put the community through—for what?  This all could have been averted in 2002 with this reasonable buy out.

    “It was a bad decision and lack of foresight to enter into a 50-year contract when it’s impossible to tell what the Navy’s needs are 10 years down the road. It was a bad decision to move ships out of Earle after building all those homes for sailors. And it was a bad decision to pass up the settlement offer in 2002. It’s now time to make a good decision. It’s time to talk about the buyout they should have done eight years ago.”

    Smith derided the ROD as a nearly worthless scrap of paper.

    Reiterating his consistently stated number one concern Smith said: “It fails to address the security problems at Earle cited in the Inspector General’s 2008 report, it fails to provide a reasonable estimate of the costs to security of any of the alternatives, including the final decision. The ROD is the latest failure.”

    At Earle, the Navy is in the difficult position of trying to comply with housing policies and a contract fixed 20 years ago in a pre-9/11 world. In other places and in more recent years the Navy has rightfully mothballed this 801 Housing policy and no longer puts themselves in such a contractual disadvantage. Smith said that the Navy should go one step further and not allow any lingering provisions left over from an old contract and old policies to put its men and women at risk inside a munitions facility.

    “Today, Navy has met some outdated contractual obligation to announce a Record of Decision,” Smith said. “That done, for the sake of security and common sense, the Navy must now pivot. They can talk to the developer who is open to a buyout.  Without a buyout, future Earle base commanders, who have a critical national security mission to fulfill, will soon find themselves as the Mayor of Laurelwood—a distraction he or she can ill afford.”

    The Navy’s chosen proposal has significant problems. It would construct a new, 1.3-mile public road through forested and wetland areas and right through the heart of one of the most important weapon depots in the country which serves our military overseas. Studies to date lack key information such as total cost of: patrolling both sides of the planned road as well as a radius around the housing area, 24 hours a day; educating new civilian students from the 300-home development; building such a long road, including a small bridge over a stream; and meeting State environmental and road development permitting, regulation and construction requirements.

    The Laurelwood privatized housing development was built on base in the 1980s in Colts Neck Township, with the intention to serve military families. Students of Navy families were supported by military impact education funding, in coordination with the nearby Tinton Falls School District. Cuts in Navy personnel stationed at Earle in recent years, however, have resulted in only about a dozen of the homes currently being used, forcing the Navy to pay more than $3 million a year to the developer to maintain empty homes. Under terms of its original construction deal with the Navy, the private owner of the development has a right to be compensated for the homes regardless of occupancy, or be allowed to lease the homes to the public.

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