In picking north St. Louis, NGA breaks sharply with 40 years of national intelligence practice | Belleville News-Democrat

For more than four decades, the U.S. federal government has pursued a clear policy when deciding where to locate its major intelligence agencies: suburban and rural settings, usually on closely guarded military installations.

It’s a preference that offers benefits that include enhanced security and ample room to grow, while making it hard for unwelcome eyes and ears to access.

But it apparently wasn’t enough of a factor when the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency chose a north St. Louis site over one next to Scott Air Force Base for the new home of NGA’s western headquarters.

The preference of sites next to military bases is manifest when going down the list of the nation’s most important intelligence-gathering outfits:

▪ The National Security Agency, whose massive phone call snooping program was exposed by whistle-blower Edward Snowden, is headquartered at Fort Meade, an Army base in Maryland.

▪ The Defense Intelligence Agency, an external military intelligence agency, is based at Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling, a Navy-Air Force installation in the southern tip of Washington, D.C.

▪ The super-secret National Reconnaissance Office, which oversees the nation’s most classified satellite spy programs, is based in Chantilly, Va., a small town 25 miles south of Washington, D.C.

▪ A mere 15 miles southeast, as the crow flies, at the Army’s Fort Belvoir, Va., is the equally clandestine eastern headquarters of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, or NGA.

The list can go on and on. One conclusion is undeniable: the U.S. government has a clear-cut, decades-long preference for basing its most important intelligence assets in rural areas, and at military installations if possible.

The reasons for this preference are pronounced, according to Jeffrey Richelson, a senior fellow with the National Security Archive, in Washington, D.C. Richelson has directed archive documentation projects and written books on the organization and operations of the U.S. intelligence community.

“Clearly military bases provide an advantage in terms of controlled access/security and, I would assume, less costly accommodations,” Richelson said.

Indeed, of the 16 agencies that make up America’s Intelligence Community, nine belong to the Defense Department, including NGA. And all nine have headquarters either on military bases or in suburban and rural settings, according to a News-Democrat review of federal records.

So on Thursday, when NGA Director Robert Cardillo announced the new home for the $1.6 billion NGA Western campus would be a blighted neighborhood in the heart of St. Louis, the response in Illinois — whose leaders had pushed hard for a 182-acre site next to Scott Air Force Base — was shock and chagrin.

What added to the Illinois leaders’ bewilderment were the major reasons that Cardillo and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers gave for locating the facility and its 3,100 jobs in North St. Louis. The Corps of Engineers prepared the final environmental impact statement, or EIS, which looks at the advantages and disadvantages of the proposed sites.

Those factors in the decision seemingly had less to do with national security, mission-focus and efficiency — the key reasons given in 2005 for moving NGA East headquarters to Fort Belvoir, for instance, and proposing originally to move NGA West to Scott Air Force Base — than government directives that encourage major federal construction projects to be located in urban zones with high minority populations and high levels of poverty.

Dave Berczek, an NGA spokesman, disputed the notion that urban renewal goals “was his primary driver” for Cardillo. “He was looking at mission.”

In a written statement, Cardillo on Thursday said the North St. Louis site would provide “NGA with the most technological, academic and professional environment for this agency to develop the capabilities and solutions necessary to solve the hardest intelligence and national security problems entrusted to us by the American people.”

The Corps of Engineers’ report, meanwhile, delved into much greater detail as to how NGA West could revitalize a neighborhood that’s fallen on hard times.

Should NGA choose the North St. Louis site, “the presence of the government facility could be a stabilizing influence in the neighborhood and contribute to the overall development planned for this area,” according to the Corps of Engineers’ report.

Cardillo’s announcement Thursday was preliminary. His final decision is due to be announced in a couple of months. Meantime, St. Clair County and Illinois leaders plan to work hard to change Cardillo’s mind and bring NGA West to St. Clair County. But everyone seems to agree this mission is a long-shot, and that Cardillo is highly unlikely to reconsider a decision that was years in the making.

Nonetheless, a major thrust of Illinois leaders’ campaign to convince Cardillo to re-think his choice centers on the idea that NGA is not in the business of urban renewal but intelligence-gathering and national security.

Their argument is that NGA West belongs in a location where it can accomplish that task with the least cost and greatest effiency. Which means St. Clair County’s site makes the most sense, according to U.S. Rep. Mike Bost, R-Murphysboro, whose 12th House District encompasses Scott Air Force Base.

“I am as surprised by this decision as I am disappointed,” Bost said in a statement. “Nearly every measurable, objective metric makes clear that NGA should be in St. Clair County.”

Bost went on to add that he appreciates efforts to invest in and rebuild struggling communities. But the “decision for placement of the new NGA western headquarters should have been made with national security and access to ready-made infrastructure as the primary determining factors,” he said.

The Corps of Engineers’ analysis of the proposed St. Clair County site underscores Bost’s point.

“Location of the next NGA West Campus at the St. Clair County site would not be a consolidation of existing military operations, so benefits to operational readiness are minimal,” the report states. “However, as previous assessments have shown, an improved security posture due to adjacency with a military base and the current open landscape would be achieved at the St. Clair County site and is a strong benefit of that location.”

Another point that rankles Illinois leaders about the proposed North St. Louis location is cost. St. Louis leaders acknowledge it will cost city and state taxpayers at least $130 million to acquire and prepare the 99-acre site for NGA West. That could turn out to be a lengthy process, since some property owners will have to evicted through the eminent domain process.

In contrast, the cost of acquiring the shovel-ready St. Clair County property would be only about $5 million — a cost the county would bear since it planned to give the entire 182-acre site free of charge to NGA.

However, Berczek, the NGA spokesman, said it remains unclear how much it will cost to acquire the 99-acre North St. Louis site.

“I think it’s premature to talk about yet,” he said. “It all depends on the Corps of Engineers, what the acquisition strategy is, the contracting mechanism, how long it’s going to take.”

As far back as 2005, top Pentagon leaders had considered just one option for moving NGA from its cramped and aging facility at the old St. Louis Arsenal at 3200 S. 2nd St., in St. Louis — the move to Scott, because that was the only option that made sense in terms of cost savings, security, improved efficiency and enhanced mission performance, according to documents obtained by the News-Democrat.

The Pentagon did not move forward with those plans at the time because there was no money allocated.

Plans for NGA to move out its St. Louis Arsenal home revived in 2012, when the agency began a series of planning studies, including an economic analysis, and determined it would be less costly, quicker and less disruptive, to build a new facility rather than upgrade current facilities at the arsenal.

NGA hopes to begin construction on the 800,000 square-foot NGA West in mid-2017, with completion to follow four years later and its workforce moving in by early 2022.

In a joint statement, Bost and U.S. Rep. Rodney Davis, R-Taylorville, and U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., expressed their shared disappointment that NGA decided not to build NGA West in Illinois.

“We’re going to continue to work hard and see through this process of relocating the agency to the site adjacent to Scott Air Force Base,” according to the statement. “During the upcoming comment period on this decision — and beyond — we will continue working with the Department of Defense and stakeholders at home to protect the future of Scott, its dedicated employees, and its enormous impact on the regional economy.”