Navy Base Realignment News Today

The Navy could pay up to $137 million to clean up the site of a World War II blimp hangar in Southern California destroyed in a fire in November, local officials estimate.

A time frame for the cleanup of the debris from the fire has not been determined, officials said.

The Navy has agreed to pay more than $6 million to demolish and remove remnants of a World War II-era blimp hangar in Southern California that was destroyed last month in a fire, service officials said Wednesday.

Orange County, California, officials declared a local state of emergency Thursday night due to the danger posed by the air pollution from the fire at a massive and historic military hangar, which besides asbestos, a carcinogen, was found to contain lead, arsenic, nickel and other heavy metals.

"We're relying on the Navy's resources to clean this up," Tustin Mayor Austin Lumbar said Wednesday.

Within 36 hours of a blaze that ate through a World War II-era blimp hangar at the shuttered Tustin Marine Corps Air Station, the city’s mayor was calling on the Navy to expedite tearing down and cleaning up the remains.

The U.S. Navy shuttered the Concord Naval Weapons Station in 2008, but plans to redevelop it for climate-friendly homes and a park are moving slowly.

The failed cleanup of a Navy site in San Francisco is a worrisome test of federal policies.

Ahimsa Porter Sumchai is doing her own research after decades of questions about public...