Navy inks contracts to revitalize shipyards
BREMERTON, Wash. – The U.S. Navy is slated to sink its first $8 billion into its plans to revitalize the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and other docks and facilities in the Pacific.
Five companies have inked contracts to compete for a decade’s worth of work aimed at modernizing the docks, wharves and other infrastructure the Navy uses in Puget Sound to maintain its fleet. About 40% of the work entailed in the contracts will occur at the Bremerton shipyard, with another 40% for Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard and the rest at smaller Pacific bases.
Rear Adm. John Korka, the Navy’s chief civil engineer, noted there are many regulatory hurdles to clear before the work can begin, including public outreach about the projects.
But he said it was important to have the companies on board through that process.
“This will facilitate healthy competition and, ultimately, help us deliver the best solution we can for our Navy and our nation,” said Korka, commander of Naval Facilities Engineering Command, the Navy’s public works arm.
The projects, part of a two-decade effort to revamp and reconfigure the Navy’s four public shipyards, must be completed by 2029.
Each of the five companies will receive a guaranteed base of $2 million. Funding will come from the Defense Department’s military construction budget.
Several of the projects are expected to be part of the “once-in-a-century effort,” as Korka called it. One of the Navy’s six dry docks in Puget Sound will be obsolete in the next decade and could be overhauled to host the Navy’s next generation of aircraft carriers, the Gerald Ford-class, as well as the Navy’s newest Virginia class of attack submarines and the yet-to-be-built Columbia class capable of carrying ballistic missiles.
There are also concerns the shipyard is ill-prepared for powerful earthquakes. The only dry dock at the Puget Sound shipyard capable of cradling an aircraft carrier – and one of only two in the Navy – needs some $667 million in seismic improvements.