WASHINGTON — The U.S. Navy expects to reopen one submarine repair dry dock in Washington by April, with a second opening in May and the third by June, after they were closed due to emerging concerns over their ability to withstand seismic activity.
The Navy on Jan. 27 announced four dry docks would be closed – dry docks 4, 5 and 6 at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and the dry dock at Trident Refit Facility Bangor — because even small seismic events “could potentially cause dry dock structural failures that pose a risk to our sailors and workforce and damage to our submarines,” an official told Defense News at the time, stressing that there was no immediate risk.
In a Senate Appropriations Defense Subcommittee hearing Tuesday, Sen. Patty Murray, a Democrat from Washington, asked about the status of the repairs.
Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday said the work at TRF Bangor was the most extensive, with repairs needed throughout the dry dock at the facility that repairs Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines. That effort is on track to wrap up in June, he said.
At Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, where aircraft carriers and attack submarines are repaired and modernized, Gilday said work is focused on portions of the dry docks near where a submarine’s nuclear reactor would be located. One should be completed in April and another in May, he said.
Gilday did not name which Puget Sound dry docks would be completed in which month, nor address a timeline for a fourth dry dock.
The Navy asked for $300 million in its unfunded priorities list to Congress for repairs. Gilday said the late 2022 and early 2023 discovery of the problem and analysis of the needed repairs was too late to insert this into the formal budget request, but he asked Congress to add this funding item during the markup process throughout this year.
In the longer term, the Navy will have to make additional upgrades at these two facilities and potentially elsewhere in the Pacific Northwest to address seismic vulnerabilities. Gilday said these upgrades would be considered alongside the ongoing Shipyard Infrastructure and Optimization Program, a 20-year effort to modernize and improve the four public shipyards.
That work is still being studied, and Gilday said it was too early to discuss the scope of potential long-term work.
But the need for this work is clear, he said.
“We really count on [Puget Sound Naval Shipyard] in terms of providing submarine maintenance for the fleet,” he said.
Megan Eckstein is the naval warfare reporter at Defense News. She has covered military news since 2009, with a focus on U.S. Navy and Marine Corps operations, acquisition programs and budgets. She has reported from four geographic fleets and is happiest when she’s filing stories from a ship. Megan is a University of Maryland alumna.
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- Source: https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2023/03/28/us-navy-to-reopen-puget-sound-dry-docks-after-seismic-retrofit/
