Grows. 17 (UPI) – A $ 1.7 billion contract was awarded for the renovation of the dry dock of the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery, Maine, the US Navy announced on Monday.
Naval Facilities Engineering Systems Command, Mid-Atlantic, Norfolk, Va., Has 381 designers from Omaha, Neb., According to the Department of Defense.
The multi-purpose dry dock construction will expand and reconfigure the existing dry dock complex to increase the ability to maintain, upgrade and repair the Navy’s attack submarines, the office said.
The seven-year project will expand the # 1 dry dock and build new concrete floors, walls, pumping systems, and other utilities to improve the 221-year-old shipyard’s capacity to handle multiple Los Angeles- and Virginia-class submarines.
“Our naval shipyards need this major modernization effort to maintain our ability to maintain our nuclear submarine fleet,” Vice Admiral William Galinis, commander of Naval Sea Systems Command, said in a press release on Monday.
“The navy needs battle-ready ships and submarines that go where they are needed, when they are needed.
U.S. Senator Susan Collins, D-Maine, said in a statement that the No. 1 dry dock is currently only able to accommodate Los Angles-class submarines, meaning that without the renovation it would be out of date if such submarines Boats would be taken out of service in the 2030s.
“This contract is vital to our national security as it enables PSNY to maintain our submarine fleet,” said Collins. “I have campaigned to fund this necessary upgrade to dry dock No. 1 and will continue to work on infrastructure projects at our country’s shipyards to keep our navy strong.”
The funds will be paid out gradually over a seven-year period, with an initial allocation of $ 70 million at the time of award and scheduled completion date in June 2028, the DoD said.
The seven-year project is part of a comprehensive program to optimize the Navy’s shipyard infrastructure to modernize the infrastructure of the Navy’s four public shipyards, all of which are capable of servicing the Navy’s nuclear-powered fleet.
The other three public shipyards include the Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Portsmouth, the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton, Washington, and the Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard in Hawaii.
The Congressional Budget Office said in a report on shipyards capacity earlier this year that the Navy plans to refuel the nuclear reactors of at least five Los Angeles-class submarines in the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, instead of fueling them to decommission them.
The CBO also considered policy options to mitigate or reduce delays at shipyards, including canceling the planned refueling of five Los Angeles-class submarines and decommissioning the ships instead.
The decommissioned submarines would have to be inactivated, adding to the Navy’s workload for several years before leading to a lower workload in 2030, CBO said.
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