NSL Update 12-20-01
SHIPYARD WORKLOAD
PSNS nabs huge Trident project
By Chris Barron, Bremerton Sun S
The two sub conversions, worth $1.67 billion, will help sustain the shipyard's
workload in the coming years. Snagging half the workload on a $3.34
billion project, Puget Sound Naval Shipyard will Convert two of the four oldest
Bangor-based Trident submarines to cruise-missile launchers, U.S. Rep. Norm
Dicks, D-Belfair said Tuesday.
"I'm very pleased," said Dicks, a senior member of the House defense
appropriations committee. "I'm pleased that two of these will be done in the
Pacific. We've got a tremendous work force going (at the shipyard)." The work
will help maintain a growing employment level at PSNS, West Sound's largest
employer.
The defense appropriations bill, which passed Congress last
Thursday and is set to be signed this week by President Bush, includes $440
million for engineering and design work on the conversion of the four Trident
subs. Originally, just $116 million was included by Bush to get started on
design work to convert two of the subs. However, Dicks persuaded a key House
panel to add $463 million to the defense budget to complete the design work for
all four Tridents.
Later, a conference committee approved a final appropriations bill that calls
for $324 million above the president's original request - $139 million short of
what Dicks asked for but still enough to complete the engineering and design
work, Navy officials said. "It wasn't as much money, but it's enough to go
forward with four of the conversions,"
Dicks said. More money will be approved in future years to
complete the actual conversions. If the Navy had converted just two Tridents,
the cost of the conversions would have been $1.1 billion per sub. However, by
converting all four in succession, the cost spiraled downward to $834 million
per sub, including $250 million to refuel each nuclear sub.
"The savings is usually not that large on four ships, but this is a particularly
complex job," said George Behan, an aide to Rep. Dicks. "To do just two required
enormous startup costs. This way, you can get the work done all at once." The
$834 million cost of each sub includes design work, backfitting, conversion and
refueling. Supporters of the project said it is much cheaper than building new
submarines.
The two conversions to be completed at PSNS are worth $1.67
billion. To simply inactivate and dismantle the four subs would have cost $440
million, a report to Congress stated. Dicks was hoping to convince the Navy to
complete all four Trident conversions at PSNS, but the Navy opted to convert two
on the East Coast. He estimated a savings of $100 million if all four Trident
conversions would've been completed at the Bremerton shipyard.
"We got the work for two of them on the West Coast," Dicks said. "That's a
decision made by the leadership of the Navy. It makes more sense (to do all four
at PSNS), but they made a hard decision."
The conversions will remove the long-range nuclear missiles from the four oldest
Trident submarines at Bangor and reconfigure each sub to carry 154 Tomahawk
cruise missiles and a team of special operations commandoes. The converted
Tridents would be known as SSGNs - a Navy term meaning submarine, guided
missile, nuclear-powered." The conversion program will be one of the largest
projects the shipyard has been involved with in recent decades.
The Navy proposed the conversion plan as a way to get more mileage out of the
four Tridents, which would've otherwise gone to the scrap heap. The four
Bangor-based Tridents - USS Ohio, USS Michigan, USS Florida and USS Georgia -
were scheduled to be taken out of the U.S. nuclear force in 2002 under the START
II strategic arms reduction treaty.