Land at the former Charleston Navy base -- who owns it, who wants it and how it will be divided -- became a long-range tug of war again last week, this time between the U.S. Border Patrol and the State Ports Authority.

YALONDA M. JAMES/STAFF Yuran Quezada plays the part of a suspect as Border Patrol students study Spanish scripts during a practice high-risk vehicle last month at the former Charleston Naval Base.

The dispute is so friendly right now that neither side seems eager to climb into the ring. But a dispute exists, at least in the eyes of the U.S. Navy, which last week said it had put a stop to transferring ownership of any land on the base until issues involving the Border Patrol's development plans are resolved.

The issue is space. With its plans for expansion elsewhere thwarted, the SPA must try to figure out a way to build a new terminal on the southern end of the base -- a task made more difficult by a variety of tenants, including the Border Patrol academy.

Until 2002, the academy was just a temporary resident. But an obscure change in a massive federal appropriations bill changed that, making the academy a permanent installation without many people noticing.

Then came the Department of Homeland Security, a federal agency so large and so new that no one is completely sure what it will comprise. Until Friday, the Border Patrol was part of the Immigration and Naturalization Service. On Saturday, it became part of Homeland Security.

While neither the Border Patrol nor Homeland Security has expressed any interest in expandingthe academy's campus, the Navy, acting as the base's landlord, has decided to be prudent. Instead of proceeding with an expected transfer of deeds to the state, the Navy has declared an indefinite moratorium to give Homeland Security time to decide what it wants.

YALONDA M. JAMES/STAFF Guns rest in a row as Border Patrol students work out in a building at the former base.

None of this is an immediate threat to the SPA's expansion plans, but what concerns base redevelopment officials is the Navy's track record: In the redevelopment history of the former Charleston Naval Base, the Navy has never met a property transfer timetable.

For a port agency that worries about its ability to keep up with the growth pressures it faces, hanging its future on the whims of two federal bureaucracies is a less than comfortable feeling.

SPACE CRUNCH

As of last week, Border Patrol deputy chief Mario Martinez said, 450 trainees at the academy were busy learning Spanish, getting into shape, studying the nation's immigration laws and firing .40-caliber pistols on a practice range.

The 5,964 agents who have graduated from the academy since 1996 represent more than 50 percent of the agents the Border Patrol now has on active duty. All the graduates from the 19-week course wind up somewhere on the Mexican border for their first tour of duty, Martinez said.

The patrol got the green light to move onto the base in January 1996, about two months before the Navy lowered its flag there for the last time. Then Attorney General Janet Reno visited the base and declared it a fit site for training, but most observers credited U.S. Sen. Fritz Hollings, D-S.C., with bringing the academy to Charleston.

Nobody at the time anticipated any interest in the place from the SPA. North Charleston had adopted a zoning law that banned any shipping terminals there, and the SPA had its eyes on Daniel Island.

The Border Patrol, which started off with $3 million for a temporary facility, began to expand. Over the next six years, it occupied all or part of 29 buildings and spent at least $39 million. Its footprint began to look like a crazy quilt when drawn on a map.

Last summer, the Border Patrol drew up a lease with the Charleston Naval Complex Redevelopment Authority, the state agency in charge of base reuse, better known as the RDA. The lease never was signed. Instead, Hollings inserted a sentence in the government's 2003 appropriations bill declaring the property "a permanent training facility." The lease no longer was needed.

Hollings also got a line in the law granting the Border Patrol "organizational jurisdiction" over the land it now occupies. It's not outright ownership, but it's the next best thing, Hollings aide Joe Maupin said.

Hollings then secured a $14 million appropriation, initially earmarked to build or renovate barracks buildings at the academy.

Meanwhile, the SPA's fortunes were changing rapidly. Its original interest in the Navy base as a site for a new terminal was spotty, and its own studies pointed toward a huge "Global Gateway" terminal on Daniel Island. All of this was fine with North Charleston, which opposed port expansion on the base.

But that opposition began to cool at the same time state legislators were uniting to block the SPA's Daniel Island plans. In June, it culminated in a deal: The Legislature ordered the SPA to divide the base with North Charleston at Supply Street once the Navy divested itself of the property.

Through the deal, the city got enough property to help its Noisette redevelopment project and the SPA got enough land -- according to lawmakers, if not port leaders -- to build a container terminal.

FUTURE PLANS

Last week, Border Patrol Academy chief Thomas J. Walters said that despite its $14 million appropriation, the patrol has no intention of expanding outside its current footprint.

"We're not looking to expand, but we are looking at renovating some barracks and possibly the (physical training) building," Walters said from his office in Glynco, Ga. "We're putting together a recommendation for the Department of Homeland Security."

The Border Patrol also has training facilities at the Charleston Naval Weapons Station in Goose Creek. "We hope the $14 million will help with what we need at both (places)," Walters said, "but I'm going to make sure I understand what Congress wants us to do with it."

The money originally was earmarked for barracks, but that language was removed from the bill before final passage. In cases like that, Maupin said, the agency usually consults with the congressional committee that approved it before any spending occurs.

SPA officials said they had no idea there might be a delay in land transfers linked with the Border Patrol.

"This is the first I've heard about it," SPA Chairman Whitemarsh Smith said. "We've asked the RDA to help us hold everything together, and we knew we'd have to move around the leases (at the base) that were already in place."

However, Smith said he was "not totally surprised" that the Border Patrol might have its eye on more property.

"The Border Patrol likes being there, but I don't want them to grow any bigger than they are," he said.

Smith suggested that the long-term answer might be to move the Border Patrol academy up to the Naval Weapons Station, a move that would open up the area for port expansion. "If we had the best of both worlds, the Border Patrol could move up there and possibly help (the Navy) avoid a BRAC," short for base realignment and closure, an action that all military facilities must face in 2005.

"I'd be more concerned if we had just received a permit (to build the container terminal at the base), but it looks like that's in the distance," Smith said.

As for the Navy, it's being cryptic. "We've some oral direction on areas (at the base) that the Border Patrol is not considering," Navy spokesman Jim Beltz said. "But until we get it in writing, we can't release anything in the way of more land."

In the meantime, the academy's long-range plan has to fit in with an entirely new organization -- the Department of Homeland Security, the federal government's newest X-factor.

Said Walters, "I intend to give that plan to my bosses within the next 60 days and give it to the public by the end of the fiscal year."

Terry Joyce covers the military. Contact him at tjoyce@postandcourier.com or 745-5857.