Battered Defenses

lmost every day at Langley Air Force Base, Va., airmen walk slowly and deliberately, shoulder-to-shoulder, up and down the runways where $31 million-dollar F-15s regularly take off and land. The airmen stare fixedly at the pavement, not at the planes roaring overhead. They ignore the bustle of the fighter jocks along the flight line. They are focused on a critical mission that could improve the Air Force's ability to fight and could save hundreds of thousands of dollars: They're picking up trash.

These foreign object debris walks, or FODs, are a common feature of life at Langley. Should an errant piece of runway debris get sucked into an F-15's engine, fixing the damage could cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions. With too little money set aside for repairing runways, the Air Force can't afford more sophisticated preventive maintenance than sending airmen out across the cracked pavement to find stray pieces of concrete or asphalt. "That's not the best and highest use of a mechanic," says Air Force Maj. Gen. Earnest Robbins, the service's top civil engineer. "The Air Force knows it's an issue, but it's matter of where you put scarce dollars."

The Air Force is not alone. Across the nation, military bases and installations have fallen into disrepair. The Defense Department has a staggering $60 billion backlog of maintenance work ranging from fixing leaking roofs to repaving runways. The military services have not set aside enough money to renovate and replace buildings as they age. At current funding levels, it would take 192 years to upgrade all military installations to a level that would satisfy all military mission requirements. Just to maintain its crumbling facilities and insufficient infrastructure, the Defense Department would have to divert billions of dollars from training service members and buying new weaponry.

• Soldiers deploying to Afghanistan often spend the weeks before they ship out in dilapidated, wooden barracks-with no air conditioning-at Fort Bragg, N.C. The barracks were built for temporary use during World War II, but soldiers still live in them because the base is overcrowded. Construction of new housing has lagged because of a lack of funding. "When a soldier is putting his life on the line he ought to know he has a decent place to come back to, not one where the air conditioning doesn't work, the ceiling may cave in or a pipe may burst on him as he lies in bed," says Army Col. Tad Davis, Fort Bragg garrison commander.
• Marines and civilian personnel at Camp Pendleton, Calif., are working in World War II Quonset huts converted to administrative offices. Summer temperatures top 100 degrees in the huts. Wooden buildings on the base slowly are being eaten away by termites. "We call it the 'quiet crisis' because a lot of maintenance problems take time to occur and are not noticed until damage occurs," says Paul Hubbel, deputy director of services and facilities for the Marine Corps.
• Fleming Hall, headquarters building for the 43rd Support Group at Pope Air Force Base, N.C., built in 1933, would fail a workplace safety inspection on just about every score. All drinking fountains have been removed from the building because rust from 50-year old pipes contaminates the water. There are no elevators to carry people up the building's three stories, a violation of the 1990 Americans With Disabilities Act. The nearly 20 layers of lead-based paint on the walls peel and flake when passersby brush against them. Inside the walls, dangerous asbestos insulation lurks. "We are positive there's asbestos here, but we don't know where because there are no [architectural] drawings of the building," says Air Force Col. Gerry Sawyer, the group's commander, who says renovating the building would cost about $5 million.
• This spring, Pope's sewer system failed, dumping more than 15,000 gallons of wastewater into rivers and streams in violation of state and federal environmental rules. The sewers haven't been fixed because the base cannot afford the estimated $140,000 repair cost. "At any time, we could receive a violation and be fined," says Renee Otto, an environmental engineer at Pope.
• Two years ago, large chunks of concrete rained down on Navy mechanics and aircraft from the ceiling of an aging airplane hangar at North Island Naval Air Station, Calif. The Navy had put off for three years spending the $1 million it would have cost to repair the hangar. To repair the roof and ceiling, station officials were forced to close the hangar for six months and wound up spending $3 million-triple the original cost-to buy temporary shelters where planes could be stored and worked on until the hangar was fixed. "That's called gambling and losing," says Navy Rear Adm. Chris Cole, chief of the Navy's ashore readiness division.

More than two-thirds of facilities at military bases have serious deficiencies or are in such poor shape that key mission requirements cannot be met, according to a 2001 survey of major military commands by the office of the deputy undersecretary of Defense for installations and environment. The proportion of facilities considered substandard grew nearly 10 percent in just a year. The deterioration of barracks, buildings, power and water systems and runways is taking a toll on America's ability to mobilize and to fight, the survey found. "Military installations and facilities are an integral component of readiness. Installations are the platforms from which our forces successfully deploy to execute their diverse missions," Ray DuBois, Defense deputy undersecretary for installations, told the House Appropriations military construction subcommittee in April.

Increasingly, maintaining military readiness-keeping troops and equipment ready to deploy at a moment's notice-means working around maintenance problems. Last year, in the heat of U.S. operations in Afghanistan, the Air Force was forced to close the main runway at Pope for 30 days for repairs. Years of deferred maintenance had left the asphalt and concrete cracked and crumbling to rubble where planes touch down. Lacking a place to take off and land, the base's 32 C-130 cargo planes, along with 500 pilots and civilian support staff who fly and maintain them, had to move from North Carolina to an Air National Guard base in Gulfport, Miss. Pope's 48 A-10 fighter planes flew off to Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, N.C., and Nellis Air Force Base, Nev., for the duration of Pope's runway repairs. Closing the runway and moving planes and personnel undoubtedly placed an extra burden on forces already stretched thin to support the war on terrorism.

In other cases, faulty facilities can cause extra, often monotonous, work for troops. Soldiers at Fort Bragg know that in the summer months they will be polishing their rifles at least once a week. The base's older weapon storage facilities are not air-conditioned and with high humidity in the region, rifle barrels can rust in a week. Fort Bragg officials say their soldiers, like the airmen and mechanics walking Langley's FOD line, could make better use of their time training rather than compensating for poor maintenance.

DuBois told legislators that the condition of military facilities not only affects the morale of military and civilian personnel, it makes it harder for the armed services to keep good people. "Quality of life and quality of workplace are directly linked to the quality of our infrastructure," he said at the April hearing. "Many surveys have shown that poor quality facilities are a major source of dissatisfaction for families and service members alike. Our aging and deteriorating infrastructure has a direct impact on retention."

Maintenance Delayed

Until recently, the military services thought nothing of siphoning off maintenance funds for more pressing priorities. Phillip Grone, DuBois' top deputy and former director of the House Armed Services military construction subcommittee, says the Defense Department and Congress have "underfunded and under appreciated" infrastructure maintenance for decades. As a result, they're now being hit with whopping repair bills.

Army Maj. Gen. Robert Van Antwerp, assistant Army chief of staff for installation management, says nearly two decades of shortchanging the service's maintenance accounts-covering only about 60 percent of needed maintenance each year, on average-has left the Army with 144,000 buildings, whose average age is 44 years, needing repairs likely to cost more than $14 billion. "The focus of the Army has always been on having a trained and ready force. We've taken the risk in our infrastructure," says Van Antwerp, noting that the Army shifts as much as $200 million to $300 million a year out of maintenance accounts to cover other expenses.

Fort Bragg, the Army's largest base, was expecting to get more than $60 million for maintenance in fiscal 2002. But as in most years, the base received less than half what it had requested. Repair funds went instead to pay other bills, such as civilian pay raises, training for troops and costs associated with contracting out some base support operations. "As that occurs over time it exacerbates the problem because we are not fixing things that we should have fixed two or three years ago," Fort Bragg's Davis says.

In the long run, delaying maintenance just adds costs. A Fort Bragg theater, abandoned for more than a decade, is being considered for use as a base courthouse. But in the 10 years it has sat empty and neglected, leaks in the roof have damaged the building's interior. "The water damage will make the building more expensive to renovate," says Gunter.

The bill for delayed maintenance is coming due at Air Force facilities as well. The Air Force Mobility Command is working to whittle down a $100 million backlog in airfield pavement upgrades. Air Force weapons storage facilities need more than $60 million in repairs and improvements. Air Combat Command buildings need $70 million in roof repairs. Additionally, the Air Force has had little money to conduct major renovations or build new facilities. Refurbishing and repairing them could take nearly 200 years, if the service does not get more money. Companies typically set aside as much as 9 percent of a building's value to cover long-term maintenance and repairs, but the Air Force and the other military services set aside less than half that amount to keep buildings up to snuff.

That results in a cascade of problems. For example, Pope Air Force Base has been waiting nearly 10 years for money to build a new building to store electronic countermeasures equipment used in A-10 aircraft. Currently, the base keeps more than $60 million worth of computers, sensors and other classified avionics equipment in a tin-walled temporary warehouse that does not meet the Defense Department's security requirements. Some equipment is stored outside, and there is no plan for how or where it could be moved during one of North Carolina's not uncommon hurricanes. Pope officials say it will be 2006 before they get the $5.5 million necessary to build a new, secure storage facility.

Getting Fixed

The Defense Department has begun to address some repair shortfalls. For 2003, Defense requested more than $5.6 billion for sustaining, restoring, modernizing and demolishing buildings and other infrastructure at military bases. Should the 2003 request be approved, it would be a $579 million increase over spending for fiscal 2002 and would cover 93 percent of all maintenance required by military bases. The fiscal 2002 maintenance appropriation covered just 75 percent of the work needed. "The first principle of sound installation management is taking care of what you own," DuBois told lawmakers in April, adding that granting the 2003 request would prevent further erosion of Defense facilities. Defense plans to continue increasing the size of its maintenance funding requests after 2003.

The 2003 budget also includes $3.3 billion for new construction and major renovations at military bases. Dubois' top aide, Grone, says funding will increase annually. By 2007, Defense hopes to cut from 192 years to 67 years its estimate of the time needed to renovate or repair all deficient facilities. "Sixty-seven years is still [too long] compared to the commercial sector, which varies between 30 to 55 years, but you can do that if you sustain them adequately," says Grone. Defense will shed some of its oldest buildings and infrastructure as result of military base closures set for 2005. Pentagon officials repeatedly have told Congress that there is as much as 25 percent excess infrastructure at the 398 military bases in the United States, and that closing some of them would save $3.9 billion, which could be used to maintain and renovate remaining facilities.

Randall Yim, who oversaw Defense installations during the Clinton administration, warns that "throwing money" at military bases will not solve maintenance problems. Instead, Yim says, funding increases should be coupled with a comprehensive base management strategy that uses information systems-computerized tracking of the ages of buildings and maintenance records-to determine where repair money best can be spent.

In 1998, the Navy consolidated 18 organizations that managed infrastructure ashore into nine regionally based offices. "We intend to continue downsizing," says Navy on-shore readiness chief Cole. He says the Navy might eventually create a single organization like the Army's to oversee all installations. The Marine Corps is reducing its maintenance costs by tearing down buildings. "We don't want to spend money repairing facilities beyond their useful life," says Marine Corps facilities director Hubbel.

On military bases everywhere, the sound of the wrecking ball is becoming as common as the sound of gunfire on training ranges. Since 1998, the Defense Department has demolished nearly 62 million square feet of excess and rundown facilities; nearly 20 million more feet will fall by the end of 2003 at a cost of $900 million. Ultimately, Defense officials say, the services will recoup that amount-and more-by reducing maintenance costs.

The Air Force, meanwhile, is hiring innovative contractors, who will design, build and repair facilities with an eye toward reducing long-term maintenance costs. The Air Force also is encouraging bases to form partnerships with local communities as a way to cut infrastructure costs and make upgrades. Brooks Air Force Base in San Antonio is giving the city land and, in exchange, San Antonio is footing the bill for base operating and maintenance expenses. Los Angeles Air Force Base is negotiating a deal with commercial real estate developers to trade excess land for a new, 580,000-square-foot office building.

Congress also is showing new and welcome interest in the condition of military bases. Last summer, several members of the House Armed Services Committee took a three-day, coast-to-coast tour to observe conditions at more than 20 U.S. military bases. The trip was planned as a prelude to a big push to increase installations spending. "What we have seen can only be described as outrageous," said Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa., during the tour. "This looks like something you'd see in a Third World country . . . the ones who are suffering are the men and women in uniform." The lawmakers returned to Capitol Hill prepared to do more than just talk about leaky pipes and ripped up runways. But as has so often been the case with military installation maintenance, other priorities intervened. This time, it was the Sept. 11 attacks that consumed lawmakers' attention, postponing again the debate over maintenance funding.