All aboard? Officials split over Battleship Texas
Standing on the coast of Normandy, France, for the 75th anniversary of D-Day, U.S. Rep. Brian Babin’s mind wandered to the beloved 104-year-old battleship berthed in his congressional district in eastern Harris County.
While much of the recent focus on the Battleship Texas has been on its decaying condition and the massive amount of public money poured into keeping it afloat, Babin took a moment to reflect on the warship’s legacy. The last surviving dreadnought that fought in two world wars played an integral role in one of the most momentous battles in history.
“It shelled the beaches and the German encampments at Utah and Omaha Beach, and it just kind of hit home even more when I was over (in Normandy) thinking about the potential loss of the battleship,” the Republican said.
Babin is among a growing number of public officials concerned not only about whether the battleship can survive another century, but which municipality will reap the benefits if it does. The Battleship Texas Foundation, the ship’s caretakers, is considering a costly and poten
tially dangerous strategy to tow the ship hundreds of miles to a dry dock for extensive repairs, with no guarantee the ship will endure without further renovations.
Whether the ship will return to its berth adjacent to the San Jacinto Battleground in La Porte after the renovation is anyone’s guess. The Battleship Texas Foundation is openly courting suitors to host the repaired ship, with Galveston the most studied and feasible option.
“The ship needs an opportunity to be successful, not only on the preservation side,” said Bruce Bramlett, the executive director of the foundation. “Everybody’s saying, ‘Hey, save her, save her, save her.’ Well, it’s kind of hard to do when she’s losing, losing, losing money.”
The ship’s future has divided state and local officials. Opponents of moving the ship argue it provides significant economic value for La Porte and Harris County. Those in favor of a new location emphasize the ship must eventually generate enough revenue to be self-sustaining and not buoyed by taxpayer dollars.
For Babin, a history buff who frequented the museum as a child, parent and grandparent, the ship’s proximity to the San Jacinto Battleground, where the decisive battle in the Texas Revolution was fought, is a unique feature.
“I want to save the battleship,” Babin said. “If it has to go to Galveston, I’ll be disappointed, and so will my constituents, that it leaves. It’s berthed for 71 years where it is today and I think (its departure) might end up hurting attendance to the battlefield.”
Opposition to relocation
Provincial concerns over the potential loss of the battleship culminated in a unanimous resolution Tuesday in Harris County Commissioner’s Court “unequivocally” opposing the ship’s relocation and pledging to “defeat any attempt to permanently change its current location.”
While the resolution has no legal standing, supporters note that the $25 million bond issue Texas voters approved to build a dry dock at the San Jacinto Battleground to repair the ship and eventually keep it out of the water was an implicit nod toward keeping it in its current location.
“If we allow (the battleship) to, once it is repaired, move to another location, we’re really kind of ignoring the will of the Texas voters,” said Chad Burke, president of the Economic Alliance Houston Port Region.
The failure of that dry dock project is a key moment that has led to a series of temporary fixes administered by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department to the battleship over the last decade. The agency scuttled the dry dock project after surveys by an engineering firm determined that the support structures in many areas of the ship had deteriorated to the point the ship could collapse on itself, even while docked at its wet berth.
Instead, the parks and wildlife department redirected the $25 million approved by the Legislature for the dry dock to repairing and maintaining the ship. All told, the agency has spent at least $54 million on repairs since 2009. The work included critical maintenance in the engine rooms, as well as installing an emergency generator and a series of pumps that dump out hundreds of thousands of gallons of water every day from the ship’s leaking hull.
The repairs have succeeded — barely — in keeping the ship afloat, but have tested the patience of lawmakers.
“It’s really not an option anymore to continue to sink $10 million into this thing every few years,” said state Rep. Steve Toth, R-The Woodlands. “That means it’s really got to go to a place where it will literally get four times the amount of tourism it gets right now.”
Senate Bill 1511, signed by Gov. Greg Abbott last month, intends to cut off the battleship’s line of credit. The bill appropriates $35 million to tow and repair the battleship at a dry dock in Louisiana, Alabama or Florida. It also ends the parks and wildlife department’s stewardship, transferring day-to-day operations of the ship to the Battleship Texas Foundation, effectively getting the state out of the museum business.
Even supporters of keeping the ship in its current location have questioned throwing more money at it.
State Rep. Mary Ann Perez, D-Houston, whose district includes the battleship, said that while she was displeased to appropriate additional taxpayer dollars to outsource the battleship repair out of state, she voted for the bill because she expects the repair to be too costly for the foundation to do on its own.
“I felt that if I didn’t pass that bill, where were we gonna get the ($35 million) from?” Perez said. “Let (the battleship) get her little tummy tuck and little face-lift and whatever else she’s gonna need with that $35 million.”
Perez added that once the repairs are complete, she intends to fight vigorously for it to stay in her district.
Dangerous journey
Of course, the repair operation is far from simple. The Houston Chronicle reported the foundation intends to transport the ship down the Houston Ship Channel and into the Gulf of Mexico, eventually berthing at a dry dock, possibly in Louisiana, Mobile, Ala., or Tampa, Fla.
The method for transporting the aging ship involves a combination of pontoons to keep it afloat and submersible pumps to prevent the vessel from being inundated on the journey. Local politicians and naval architects have questioned the feasibility of this plan and warn that it could be catastrophic for the ship channel if the battleship were to sink or become grounded.
“I’m very concerned if it went down and blocked the ship channel, the cost to our industry and our nation would be very high,” Babin said.
If the repair operation is successfully funded and completed — the battleship foundation is still searching for $10 million to $15 million in addition to the $35 million from the state to fund it — legislators have expressly stated the intent of SB 1511 is to pave the way to move the ship to a new location.
Rep. John Cyrier, R-Lockhart, the bill’s House sponsor, previously told the Houston Chronicle that moving the battleship to Galveston would draw more tourists, and that those ticket sales would boost revenue to pay for the ship’s future maintenance costs.
Cyrier and other supporters of moving the battleship have cited an economic study prepared by Deloitte that shows a potential windfall if it were to move to Seawolf Park in Galveston, which already features the Galveston Naval Museum as well as popular fishing piers and picnic sites.
The 17-page report, commissioned by the Battleship Texas Foundation and completed in September 2016, projects 283,000 visitors to the battleship in Seawolf Park and $3 million in annual revenue, compared with 88,000 annual visitors and $1.3 million at its La Porte location.
The Galveston projection would put the Battleship Texas on par with attendance figures for similar World War II-era museum ships, such as the USS Lexington in Corpus Christi (306,000 annual visitors) and the USS Alabama in Mobile, Ala. (277,000 annual visitors).
The report projects that the battleship could generate as much as $9.1 million in economic impact for Galveston County, as well as $156,000 in tax revenues. By comparison, the Economic Alliance Houston Port Region estimates that the battleship currently generates about $4.3 million for Harris County.
Bramlett, the executive director of the Battleship Texas Foundation, said Galveston’s increasing number of tourists — 7.2 million visitors in 2018, according to Galveston’s Convention & Visitors Bureau — piqued his interest as a destination for the battleship, but added he intends to generate competition to host the ship.
“It’d be really foolish to just jump out and say, ‘Oh, well here’s where we want to go,’ ” Bramlett said. “Is Galveston in play? Sure, 7.2 million visitors will do that. Has there been some decision it’s going to Galveston? Not even close.”
Galveston City Manager Brian Maxwell said he met recently with Bramlett and said the city would love to add the battleship to its tourist destinations at Seawolf Park, but could not promise any financial contribution toward making that happen.
“The city is not in a financial position right now to be a partner,” Maxwell said. “We certainly would love to have the battleship here, we certainly would work with them as much as we can through in-kind services and other things to make it happen, but we are not in a position to assume any long-term expenses associated with the ship or any of the operational costs to bring it here.”
Perez is among those skeptical of Galveston’s upside as a tourist destination for the battleship, noting that tourist numbers dwindle outside the summer months.
“I’ve lived in Houston all my life and I don’t recall once taking my children to Galveston in the winter,” Perez said.
Maxwell insists that perception is outdated, noting the island’s year-round cruise ship visitors.
Ultimately, the ship’s location will be determined by whether the repair operation is successful. In the meantime, Bramlett says he’s tuning out the noise from officials regarding the battleship and focusing on raising the money to fix it.
“There’s a lot of political posturing going on, whether it’s from the federal level or the state level,” Bramlett said. “If you’re an elected official, you want to be able to tell your constituency, ‘Hey I tried to keep it, I tried to keep it.’ ”