“Disgusted” and “disappointed” is how U.S. Rep. Jim Moran (D-8th) feels about the U.S. Army’s September 2011 relocation of 6,400 federal employees to Alexandria’s Mark Center. Moran spoke with Patch on Wednesday afternoon between votes on the House floor, and defended his near-constant disapproval of the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure Act.  

Moran said he feels apprehensive. “It’s a sense of impending chaos when these people move,” he said. “I just have to say [I am] disgusted with some of the people who, either through indifference or wrongheadedness, have allowed this to happen.”

Moran would not name names. “There are a number of people that are sources of disappointment but I’m not going to get into any personal attacks,” he said. “I’ve got to do what I feel I need to do and get some help from corners where we need it.

“This is going to be horrible from a traffic standpoint. The people who live in the area are going to be extremely adversely affected by it, as will all of the 200,000 commuters who live outside of Seminary Road and have to commute inside Seminary Road. My guess is it’s going to put an extra hour on their commute.”

Is the Mark Center move of 6,400 Washington Headquarters Services employees an issue of national security? “I think it’s more a matter of national security to have all of these folks concentrated in one building within easy access of any of the 200,000 vehicles that pass by that building and could reach it with a .50 caliber sniper rifle or an RPG (rocket propelled grenade) or any number of other weapons,” Moran said. “I think they were much safer in commercial office buildings where they were not so obvious.”

Extend the Deadline?

Moran wants the Sept. 15, 2011, move-in deadline extended by a year. “My hope is that we can delay filling [the building] until the transportation infrastructure is in place,” he said. “There are two things that we have currently pending. One is language in the Military Construction Appropriations Bill, a subcommittee on which I serve, that prevents the Pentagon from using more than 1,000 parking spaces in the building or around the building.

“Another is language that I expect to be included in the Defense Authorization Act, within days, that will delay the BRAC implementation by another year. Both of those I have been working on now for quite some time and I think both of them are going to be included in their respective pieces of legislation,” Moran said.

A delay could result in the federal workers staying in leased offices in Crystal City. “It means that the Pentagon would be able to leave the Mark Center building open for another year, and it would give us another year to work on addressing the transportation situation,” Moran said.

But is a year enough? A crucial flyover ramp that would accommodate HOV traffic directly to Seminary Road won’t be finished until at least 2015, according to the Virginia Department of Transportation. Other short and mid-term transportation improvements such as road-widening and lane re-striping will not begin until 2012.

Moran isn’t alone in his quest for a delay. Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, a Republican, recently wrote a letter to U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and the Department of Defense, and asked  for a delay of the Mark Center relocation.

Failure on Multiple Levels

The Army failed to make accurate transportation impact studies of the area, according to a 200-page DoD Inspector General report released last month. Since the report’s release, Moran has asked local governments to take legal action against the Army.

In 2008, the Alexandria City staff wrote a letter to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers stating that the use of the Mark Center would create “No Significant Impact” on the traffic or environment in the surrounding community.

Moran, who served as Alexandria's mayor from 1985 to 1990, said his influence on local governments is limited. “All I can do is kind of cajole them and suggest things,” he said. “If I were mayor [of Alexandria], I would have moved forward with a suit based upon proven deficiencies in the transportation study, but I respect Mayor Euille’s decision and that of the City Manager. I’m not going to second-guess them. They have other things to be concerned about, including the cost of litigation.”

Moran believes he has done everything possible to make BRAC work for Northern Virginia. “I don’t know what more I could have done,” he said. “I have explored every angle and my staff has devoted more time to this issue than anything else.

"Maybe if I had gotten [Republican Arizona Senator] John McCain out of the process, because he kept killing the parking cap legislation for the last two years saying it was an earmark," Moran said. "I don’t know what I could have done other than get him elected president. That would have gotten him out of the mess, but I don’t think that would have been fair to the rest of the country.”