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14 December 2014

Mystery DC Navy Project Near 11 Years Underway

Previous eyeballs beginning in 2004:

http://cryptome.org/eyeball/usndc/usndc-eyeball.htm

Washington Post, November 26, 2004, Pg. B1

Navy Keeps A Secret In Plain Sight

Hush-Hush Project Underway by Potomac

By Spencer S. Hsu, Washington Post Staff Writer

Shortly after dawn on a recent morning, two dump trucks and a water tanker pulled up to a new, unmarked complex of buildings at East Potomac Park, the grassy peninsula near the Jefferson Memorial. The drivers exited their cabs, knocked at a gatehouse with blacked-out windows and waited for a security guard to emerge from behind a locked door.

A few minutes later, a panel of 10-foot-high security fence slid open, and the trucks disappeared inside, leaving the joggers and cyclists along the waterfront none the wiser about their mission.

What goes on beyond the fence is a mystery. The multi-agency review normally required to erect anything on federal parkland did not apply to the beige, metal buildings. The Navy, which operates the site at Ohio and Buckeye drives SW, calls the work a "utility assessment and upgrade" and volunteers nothing more.

"As a matter of policy, we can't go into the particulars," said a Navy spokesman, Lt. Cmdr. Joseph A. Surette.

Frederick J. Lindstrom, acting secretary of the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, said it is illegal for him to discuss the matter. He did say the Navy started the work without seeking review from the commission, which oversees the city's Potomac River parklands.

"Let's just say when they're finished, you'll be glad they've done what they've done," Lindstrom said.

Amid the secrecy, theories abound about the four-acre complex, which is dead center in a ring that includes the White House, the U.S. Capitol, the Pentagon, Reagan National Airport and the National War College. Is it a sophisticated sensor station, guarding the 14th Street bridge and other Potomac River crossings? Is it an excavation point for underwater barriers to protect the Washington Channel and Potomac River from submarines? Is it a staging area for Navy Seabees securing underwater cables between the White House and the Pentagon, across the river?

[more]

23 April 2014. Unusually close, 4 photos taken in April 2014.

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14 October 2013

15 July 2013

30 May 2013

19 April 2013

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17 December 2012

12 October 2012

29 October 2010

22 October 2005

28 February 2005

9 August 2004

5 April 2004

6 December 2003. Prior to start of construction, used by US Park Service.