BATTLE GROUND — In real estate terms, Fire Station 27 is a classic fixer-upper, a cozy space with character to boot.
But Clark County Fire & Rescue has some other choice words for it: Cramped and maze-like. Privacy for overnight fire crews is nonexistent, with slapdash partitions separating sleeping chambers. Elsewhere, evidence of its former life as a police station is as plain as the old holding cells currently used as storage space. After all, one doesn’t often find a gleaming silver toilet in the same room as the dry goods.
The city has wanted to pump money into remodeling the station at 505 S.W. First Street. for years. But the remodel is considered too costly for the city to perform on its own. Battle Ground has attempted to land a federal grant for several years to pay for the work, but the city hasn’t been able to reel one in.
That won’t stop Battle Ground — or, more precisely, its federal lobbyist — from trying again this year.
Included within Battle Ground’s federal legislative agenda — a wish list of projects for which the city attempts to dig up federal dollars every year — is a $400,000 request to fix up the 33-year-old station.
But after playing the waiting game for years, optimism that 2014 will be different is given short shrift.
“It’s been a (city) priority for a long time,” said Mike Ciraulo, a former Battle Ground mayor and a current fire captain for CCF&R. “But trying to remodel a fire station hasn’t always been a high priority for the federal government.”
He remembers talking to the local legislative delegation in Washington, D.C., when he was mayor and being told that competition for a grant was stiff. In recent years, it’s gotten stiffer. Congress has tightened the clamps on spending by placing a moratorium on earmarks. That shows no signs of disappearing.
That poses a problem. Over the years, the cinderblock-constructed station has never undergone seismic retrofitting, the sort of work that would reinforce the structure and protect it from collapsing during an earthquake.
“When it was originally designed and built, the possibility of it standing up to an earthquake was not a consideration,” said Dennis Mason, fire chief for Clark County Fire & Rescue. While the city owns the building, the fire district operates out of it under contract.
Because there are concerns that a severe earthquake will eventually hit the Pacific Northwest, the station’s lack of stability poses the question: What would happen if a quake leveled the very building housing emergency responders? It’s a quandary fire stations have worked to address in recent years.
In 2010, a Vancouver battalion chief released a report showing that five of that city’s 10 stations would not hold up during a massive earthquake.
While no such seismic study has been performed on Fire Station 27, its firefighters say other deficiencies exist there.
The decontamination area where paramedics clean up between calls is in the vehicle bay where the fire engines are parked. At most fire stations, the decontamination area is set aside in a more sanitary area to prevent cross contamination.
“It would be nice if you had something that was more specific to decontamination,” said Paul Bustamante, a firefighter who works out of Fire Station 27. “We don’t want anybody getting sick.”
The sleeping quarters are in a room formerly used as the city’s emergency operations center. It’s too small to be used for that purpose now, so it’s been turned into a crash pad, with cubicle partitions placed around beds for privacy.
Bustamante said while the station is big, the space isn’t functional because it was formerly used as both a police and fire station. Hallways snake throughout the voluminous building, and many rooms don’t have specific purposes.
Unless the city receives money to renovate the station in the coming years, it may have to ask residents to support a levy to build a new one, City Manager John Williams said.
It’s unclear whether there will even be federal grant money available this year to pay for renovations, Williams said.
The federal government used to offer more grant opportunities, he said. Now, many of those have been turned into loans.
It’s not cost-effective for the city to apply for federal loans, Williams said. Down the road, the expectation is the city will be on the hook for the costs.
“Long term, building a new station is a reality because cities grow over time,” he said.
