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Sandblast Facility Damaged by Hurricane Katrina Under Construction in Gulfport

Navy NewsStand

Story Number: NNS080815-02
Release Date: 8/15/2008 9:43:00 AM

By Naval Facilities Engineering Command Southeast Public Affairs Officer

GULFPORT, Miss. (NNS) -- A new sandblast facility aboard Naval Construction Battalion Center (NCBC) Gulfport is scheduled for completion November 2008. The new facility will support Naval Facilities Expeditionary Logistics Center (NFELC) Construction Equipment Division (CED) Detachment Gulfport and will replace the facility destroyed by Hurricane Katrina.

"We are anxious to put the new facility into use," said Chief Warrant Officer Charles Heatherly, Officer in Charge, CED Detachment. "Currently, we are utilizing contractors to sandblast our equipment off base."

CED must pay the transportation costs to take its equipment to the contractor and compete with other customers to get on the contractor's schedule.

"Having the in-house capability again will make us much more self sufficient and will save us both time and money," added Heatherly.

The new facility is one 60-foot, 2,922 square feet bay that includes a climate-controlled changing room, automatic dust recovery system, automatic media recovery system, and compressed and breathing air system.

The state-of-the-art facility is National Environmental Policy Act-compliant and will be used to remove rust, corrosion, and paint from construction equipment and other vehicles prior to repainting.

"We worked closely with the industrial hygienists to ensure the safest possible working environment for the CED employees," said Russ Dail, construction manager assigned to the project for the Resident Officer in Charge of Construction (ROICC) Gulfport.

"We have just modified the contract to increase the exhaust system velocity from 60-feet-per-minute (FPM) to 100 FPM."

The increased FPM will provide better working visibility and will clear the air quicker. The new facility is a self-contained blast booth, encompassed by a pre-engineered building that is framed out for the shower, locker room, and administrative space.

NFELC and CED support a wide-range of Navy customers, including naval mobile construction battalions under the 1st Naval Construction Division and other expeditionary forces.

"The contractor partnered with us very well," said Frank Sorbin, the engineering technician assigned to the project for ROICC Gulfport. "They have worked hard to shorten their material delivery time line and to meet all the government documentation requirements."

The $1.6 million project was awarded to Blast Coast Systems, in Ranch Cucamonga, Calif., in September 2007.

For more news from Naval Facilities Engineering Command, visit www.navy.mil/local/navfachq/.