On Monday, the Government Accountability Office released a report on the step-by-step analysis that went into choosing a new western home for the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency.
The finding: Everything looks great.
The site selection process had become an interstate tug-of-war for members of Congress from Missouri and Illinois. The new campus, to be on a 100-acre tract in north St. Louis, will run upward of $1 billion to build.
That construction amount does not include the economic worth of decades of federal jobs that will be attached to the facility.
The agency, informally known as the NGA, can properly be described as a spy agency. Though secret at its core, its website says the agency “describes, assesses and visually depicts physical features and geographically referenced activities on the Earth.”
The NGA headquarters reside in Springfield, Virginia, but the St. Louis facility has a long history, including its use in World War II as a map unit for the Army Air Corps and during the Korean and Vietnam wars as an aeronautical chart plant for the Air Force.
In its review, the GAO found the process in which the agency considered site alternatives to be “well-documented, comprehensive and unbiased.”
That did not come as a surprise to Missouri Sen. Roy Blunt, who with fellow Sen. Claire McCaskill championed the site in their home state.
“Missouri is home to more than 3,000 dedicated, highly skilled NGA personnel who, for more than 70 years, have provided critical intelligence and combat support to keep our country safe,” the Republican senator said. “The findings in the GAO report provide further momentum for moving this project forward.”
Alternative sites had been considered on both sides of the state line, including two in St. Louis County and one across the Mississippi River near Scott Air Force Base in St. Clair County, Illinois.
From this latter alternative came a squabble with Illinois lawmakers, who pushed for the facility in that state and cited a better security situation and a shovel-ready site. Congressman Mike Bost, who represents the Illinois district, spoke out on the House floor about the review process.
The Republican representative said that the initial Army Corps of Engineers data collected confused the St. Clair County in Illinois with a county by the same name in Michigan.
“I believe the NGA is making a terrible mistake that could have serious consequences,” he said last year. “They didn’t have the correct data. Before this decision is made final, the people deserve the truth. Not just the people of St. Clair County, not just the people of north St. Louis, but we, the United States citizens.”
The GAO report was delivered to Kansas Sen. Jerry Moran, chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Military Construction, Veterans Affairs and Related Agencies.
©2017 the St. Joseph News-Press (St. Joseph, Mo.) Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
