Forget armed Marine assaults in Somalia and that little war in Kuwait. The Marines are really pulling out the stops in a fight now - against Tooele Army Depot.

Two Marine depots in Albany, Ga., and Barstow, Calif., are pitted against Tooele for survival before the Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission, which hopes to complete its final closure list next week.So the Marines are saying Tooele's vehicle repair work is shoddy, is never delivered on time, is too expensive and is too distant from their bases.

Worse, the Army isn't defending Tooele because the base was on Defense Secretary Les Aspin's original closure list - which he and the joint chiefs of staff are still urging be adopted with little change. Therefore, more junior officers are mum on Tooele.

Utah officials had thought their arguments had Tooele well on its way to winning before the Marines counterattacked. Now, Rep. Jim Hansen, R-Utah, says, "I think we have a 50-50 chance. But if logic and common sense prevail, we will win because you should keep the best and the newest - and that's what we have."

Those 50-50 odds may not be too bad. However, if the Tooele facility is put on the list, its chances for survival are decreased considerably, considering nine of every 10 bases proposed for closure from 1988 to 1991 had execution orders actually signed. Still, it has Utah officials scrambling, and finding as many negative as positive signs.

Hansen gave the commission packets of information Thursday designed to refute Marine attacks. His aides said the charge causing most concern on the commission is that Tooele's labor costs are too high.

They are currently $105 an hour - which is near astronomical.

Hansen said that was set by the Army based on expected Tooele workload to help amortize the cost of its new $110 million Consolidated Maintenance Facility, a high-tech assembly line truck repair plant.

Hansen said if Tooele took over the Marine depots' work, the hourly rate could drop to $48 - because the overhead would be spread over more labor hours. He said Tooele performs actual work more cheaply, except for paying off overhead as mandated by the Army.

"Meanwhile, the old Marine depots were amortized before you were born, which makes their rates look lower," Hansen said in an interview.

A sign that argument has been heard by the commission is that Chairman Jim Courter said in a hearing Thursday he is concerned that military closure formulas punish bases that modernize and reward those that use outdated facilities.

Another problem for Tooele is that the Marines say it was supposed to deliver 90 Jeep-like HMMWV vehicles to it beginning in March, but the first still has not arrived - which they say is a sign of continuing tardiness by Tooele.

Closure commission member Beverly Byron gave top Army officials a chance to defend Tooele on that point Thursday, but they made no comment.

Hansen in his information packets blamed "the minor delays" on "lack of supply parts from third parties, not because of any deficiencies at Tooele. The Marine Corps would be experiencing the same lack of supply parts themselves if they were doing the work."

The Marines also claimed transportation costs to Tooele would be too high, and that Tooele could not meet its normal time schedules nor fix such things as amphibious assault vehicles.

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Hansen replied that Tooele has underbid Marine depots continuously on work, and has shown it can fix whatever they have and on time.

The Marines also claimed Tooele work is shoddy, as shown by Tooele engines it received that leaked oil. Hansen said they met Marine specifications that allowed two or three drops of oil an hour, but Tooele went back at no cost to fix those leaks - even though Marines would not upgrade their work order specifications.

Of note, a Deseret News probe last year of all complaint forms filed against Tooele from 1990 through 1992 showed it had a relatively low complaint rate of about nine per every 1,000 repairs or overhauled items - not bad for any group of mechanics.

It also went out of its way to fix problems that occurred - even sometimes fixing for free items it had not originally serviced, items ruined by customer neglect or items serviced up to 10 years earlier.

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