Maryland congressional lawmakers are demanding answers from Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro about recent reports of what the lawmakers called “unacceptable living conditions” at the service member barracks at the Walter Reed base in Bethesda.
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In a letter sent to the Navy secretary on Thursday, Democratic Sens. Chris Van Hollen and Ben Cardin and Rep. Jamie Raskin (D) said they were deeply concerned about problems ranging from no hot water to broken air conditioning at Comfort Hall and Sanctuary Hall, two barracks buildings for junior-enlisted sailors and soldiers at Naval Support Activity Bethesda. The buildings were built or opened in 1986 and 2014, respectively.
Those poor conditions, the lawmakers said, could “have serious impacts on health, morale, personal safety, and military readiness.” They asked Del Toro to respond to a list of questions by Feb. 24 about the steps the Navy is taking to correct and prevent the decrepit conditions from recurring.
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“We are alarmed by the revelation that these conditions have persisted for years despite reportedly being known to installation leadership,” the lawmakers wrote. “We appreciate fully that military installations must often operate under budgetary constraints and with competing priorities, but these conditions are critical for the wellbeing of service members and pose an immediate threat to military readiness.”
The letter comes in response to reports from the Navy Times, an independent military news outlet, about what it described as “hellish conditions” at the base, home to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. In a story earlier this month, service members described enduring sweltering summers without working air conditioning, living on canned food due to broken refrigerators, broken thermostats, not being able to have a warm shower and feeling unsafe due to broken door locks.
Servicemembers described enduring a lack of hot water for years and did not believe leadership was addressing the problems. The Navy Times reported in another story that complaints that service members lodged were “largely disappearing into the ether” and sometimes went uninvestigated or were poorly investigated by officials, in part due to what officials described as a reporting problem in its system for maintenance complaints.
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Leadership at Naval Support Activity Bethesda held a town hall meeting with service members on Feb. 3 and accepted fault for poor responses to the issues many were experiencing, the Navy Times reported. Repairs began shortly thereafter.
Jeremy Brooks, a public affairs officer at Naval Support Activity Bethesda, told The Washington Post on Thursday that more than 300 service members were moved from the barracks to a hotel so that repairs to the hot-water system could be completed. Officials told residents that “an engineering design flaw, contracting issues, and communication failures” delayed repairs to the hot-water system in Comfort Hall last year, and that there had been unresolved problems in Sanctuary Hall since 2015.
Brooks said officials failed to effectively communicate with residents of the barracks about efforts to make repairs. Officials have since created a website to regularly update the building residents about the ongoing repair projects.
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“We have to do a better job communicating what we’re doing to fix the problem,” Brooks said. “It’s a customer service issue. When you’re not getting communication about what’s being done to assist you, it can come across as just not caring about what’s going on.”
Brooks said officials are still reviewing how to address the broken door locks, including possibly replacing all the locks. He said the problem with the air conditioning has been addressed but that service members are being encouraged to flag any problems in the coming months once they begin using air conditioning again.
Asked why it was only just now that hot-water repairs were being completed despite years of problems, Brooks noted that some past attempts at repairs were unsuccessful, and that this time the Navy provided necessary additional resources to assist them in relocating the service members to hotel rooms so that repairs could be finished.
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“We got the help that we needed, and we are happy to have that assistance from the Navy to get this stuff addressed,” he said. “Getting it taken care of is a priority. We do agree that basic quality of life is the least we can do for our service members.”
As the Maryland lawmakers noted, Comfort and Sanctuary Halls are not the only buildings that “have been allowed to deteriorate to an unacceptable state,” noting it has been part of a pattern.
In 2007, The Post documented disrepair, black mold and neglect at the old Walter Reed Army Medical Center in the District. The three Maryland lawmakers pointed to more recent living conditions at the firehouse at the Walter Reed base barracks in Bethesda “plagued by mold, asbestos, roof leaks, electrical issues and structural instability” before “a 2019 fire rendered approximately half of the facility uninhabitable,” they wrote in the letter to Del Toro.
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They questioned why the Navy still does not appear to have prioritized the construction of a new fire station despite congressional requests. Van Hollen, Cardin and Raskin asked Del Toro to describe actions the Navy is taking to “end the troubling pattern of on-base facilities being neglected until they reach a state of crisis,” and asked what the Maryland delegation could do to support its efforts.
In a statement, Capt. Jereal Dorsey, a spokesman for the secretary of the Navy, said Del Toro had not yet received the letter “but is tracking the situation regarding NSA Bethesda Barracks very closely.”
“As he has stated previously, the safety and wellbeing of our Sailors, Marines, civilians, and their families is one of Secretary Del Toro’s top priorities,” Dorsey said.