Gates County officials are seriously considering joining Camden County's legal fight against a U.S. Navy plan to study both counties for a pilot training field, officials said Monday.

Camden County attorney John Morrison said Monday he was drawing up an agreement that has Gates sharing Camden's expenses for hiring Poyner & Spruill, a Raleigh-based law firm.

Camden commissioners several weeks ago agreed to hire five lawyers from Poyner & Spruill — one of the state's oldest and largest law firms — to help make the case against a Navy practice airfield being located in the Hales Lake area.

Gates officials haven't made a formal commitment, but Camden officials believe their neighbor is close to signing on for the legal fight against the Navy's outlying landing field.

"So far, my understanding is that Gates is seriously considering coming in with us," Camden County Manager Randell Woodruff said Monday.

Gates Board of Commissioners Chairman J.S. Pierce said Monday that Gates needs more information about what the legal fight will cost before it agrees to share the bill with Camden.

"We are looking into it," he said. "We don't have the fund balance to jump in completely blind. I'm not really sure at this time what our final decision will be. We don't have the fund balance to get involved like Camden does."

Even with the 15 percent discount Poyner & Spruill is offering, Camden's legal costs are expected to be high. Officials say the individual lawyers' fees will range from $190 an hour to $315 an hour.

One official said the counties' legal battle could cost in excess of $500,000, but Camden officials have cautioned that it's too early to say how much the final bill could be.

Camden plans to pay its share of Poyner & Spruill's fees from the county's $4 million reserve fund. Gates, which has a reserve fund of only $906,610, will have a tougher time paying legal fees. Gates was considering hiring a law firm on its own, but Pierce said he sees the advantage to joining forces with Camden. If Gates agrees to join Camden's fight, the counties are expected to split the cost 50-50.

The Navy has announced that sites in Gates and Camden counties, as well as three in Virginia, have been selected for a 30-month study to determine their suitability for an OLF. The Navy wants to use the OLF as a training site where fighter pilots would practice takeoffs and landings similar to those performed on aircraft carriers.

Both Camden and Gates counties also could be getting help in their fight against an OLF from a Washington, D.C. organization known as FreedomWorks.

At a meeting in Gates County last week, a FreedomWorks representative said the organization could help either county fight against hosting the OLF.

Kathy Hartkopf, a legislative assistant for FreedomWorks, could not be reached for comment Monday.

According to its Web page, the organization was founded in 1984, has a full-time staff in ten states and more than 800,000 grass-roots volunteers nationwide. The organization is chaired by former U.S. House Majority Leader Dick Armey.

Private citizens in Gates have also hired the Southern Coalition for Social Justice to help fight against the OLF being located in the county. The Coalition for Social Justice was founded in Durham a year ago by Anita Earls, an attorney and former Clinton administration official.

"I've been doing civil rights law 20 years," Earls said in a telephone interview on Monday.

She said the coalition helps represent minorities and lower-income families in legal disputes. The reason she agreed to take the Gates citizens' case, she said, is because of the large number of minorities who live near the site the Navy is studying in Gates County.

"I'd say low-income (residents), even working people, can't put aside money to hire an attorney," Earls said. "That is the whole reason for organization."

She said there are federal laws that could stop an OLF from being built in either Camden or Gates. She said Title 6 of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 bars federal funds from being spent in a way that has a disparate impact on minorities.

"If it turns out that minority communities are being more heavily burdened generally by this (OLF) than other communities, then it would be a violation of that (law)," she said.

Camden resident Larry Johnson, the leader of the Camden-based group Concerned Citizens Against the OLF, said Monday that he has no plans to contact Earls unless Gates residents desire his group to do so.

Johnson attended a meeting in Gates last week at which a DVD developed by OLF opponents in Gates was played. He said the DVD clearly illustrates how loud Navy jets can be.

"It has a real good sound effect with the jets," he said. "They filmed the landings at Fentress."

He was referring to the Navy OLF located at Fentress, Va.

Johnson said Gates residents got off to an earlier start than Camden residents in organizing their opposition to the OLF.

"They are ahead of us in getting stuff up and going," he said.