August 24, 2005

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Palo Alto Online

Showdown looms at Hangar One

by Jay Thorwaldson

A decade-long struggle to save Hangar One at Moffett Field is heading for a showdown in the next two months.

The U.S. Navy, which built the 200-foot high hangar in 1932-33, announced last Thursday night it will reach a decision on the hangar's fate by Oct. 21. About 50 persons attended the meeting, frequently applauding pro-hangar comments.

That cut-off date is one week after an Oct. 14 deadline for bids from firms to line the hangar with new solar panels. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), which has taken over the hangar, announced that three firms have expressed interest. The hangar's future could hinge on those bids, NASA officials said.

The mood at the workshop -- held in the NASA gift-shop building just outside the main gate to Moffett Field -- was antagonistic at the beginning, a holdover from a July 12 meeting when the Navy presented just two alternatives, both involving demolition of the huge structure. The Navy indicated later it will consider other alternatives.

At Thursday's workshop, Navy representatives presented 13 alternatives, ranging from demolition to coating the hangar inside and out with long-lasting epoxy or enamel to contain the toxic sidings.

The Navy earlier set a Sept. 2 deadline for a preliminary decision on the hangar's fate -- it is responsible for cleaning up the base's toxic contamination. A Pentagon/Navy-commissioned study on alternatives is due out at about the same time (see sidebar).

Pushing hard to save the massive structure is the Save Hangar One Committee (SHOC), an eclectic group of local civic leaders and officials, military buffs, aviators and environmentalists that includes several Palo Altans in leadership roles. It has appealed to Sens. Diane Feinstein and Barbara Boxer and U.S. Rep. Anna Eshoo to pressure the Navy to save the structure -- reiterating earlier support by Boxer and Eshoo.

The committee wants to turn Hangar One into a center celebrating California's air, space, science and technology achievements, as planned for the past five years by a group of high-profile sci-tech celebrities and local officials, who organized in 2000 and formally launched their effort in 2002. One idea is to have a real space shuttle standing upright inside the hangar.

Then the hangar itself was found to be the source of serious toxic contamination of a nearby marsh area, known as Site 25, due to the substances used in the manufacture of its side paneling: including a rare type of carcinogenic PCB, asbestos and zinc. About 18 percent of the panels are toxic, which flakes off in dry weather or runs off during rainstorms. The marsh cleanup for years had pitted local environmentalists and community officials against the Navy.

NASA's discovery two years ago that the hangar itself was the primary culprit, and not Navy airfield operations as earlier suspected, shut down the Moffet Field Museum operation inside the hangar and put on hold expansive dreams for the air-space-technology-science center.

A complementary vision is to wrap the hangar entirely with solar panels, turning the building into a electricity generator -- a high-visibility demonstration site to help brighten the future of Silicon Valley.

But finances are a huge barrier. In addition to the estimated $30 million to demolish or clean up the existing building, just bringing the building up to code with electrical and plumbing and other improvements to make a hi-tech center possible is estimated to cost another $20 million to $40 million -- expected to be done through a major fundraising effort.

The hangar was built in 1932 to house the dirigible U.S.S. Macon , which is a bit larger than the Titanic and crashed into the Pacific Ocean off Point Sur the following year -- its skeletal remains were located about 1,450 feet down in 1990.

During World War II, the U.S. Naval Air Station at Moffett Field reportedly used the hangar as an airplane refitting and repair station. In the 1960s, the hangar was used to test experimental vertical-take-off-and-landing (VTOL) airplanes, flying them on stabilizing tethers inside.

During the Cold War years and through the 1980s, a P3 Orion squadron of sub-hunter planes was housed there.

When the Navy pulled out of Moffett in 1994, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) assumed responsibility for the naval base, including the big hangar and two smaller -- but still massive -- rectangular structures that housed military blimps that patrolled the Pacific Coast looking for Japanese submarines during World War II.

Editor Jay Thorwaldson can be e-mailed at jthorwaldson@paweekly.com.

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