Rumors Carrier May Go to Bremerton Are Discounted
The Navy town that ultimately hosts the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan will see $141 million in salaries pumped into its economy annually.
But the story of the just-launched carrier going to Bremerton, Wash., rather than San Diego has little weight, said one leader in the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce.
“It’s a what-if plan,” said Joe Craver, immediate past chair of the chamber, who sits on the executive committee of the chamber’s military affairs committee.
The Navy is likely eight months away from making a decision on the matter, Craver said, adding that area leaders will fight to bring the carrier here. Members of San Diego’s congressional delegation have echoed that sentiment.
Ultimately the secretary of the Navy makes the decision, said a Virginia-based Navy spokeswoman, who could not give a time line for the decision.
The Navy had earlier announced plans to make San Diego the Reagan’s home port.
In that scenario, it would join the nuclear-powered USS John C. Stennis. The nuclear-powered USS Nimitz will take up residence here in November.
The area’s other carrier, the conventionally powered USS Constellation, is expected to be decommissioned in 2003.
The possibility of the Reagan changing its home port from Norfolk, Va. , where the ship is being completed , to Bremerton in 2004 was raised earlier this month when an internal Navy message on the subject became public.
Craver said he believed the message was leaked, and that talk of changing the carrier’s home port is “premature.”
According to several sources, bringing the Reagan to Bremerton would remedy an economic problem that might be felt in that area.
Bremerton faces the prospect of being without a carrier for several years. That is because the Bremerton-based USS Carl Vinson soon must go to Virginia to be refueled. That will leave Puget Sound with just one carrier, the USS Abraham Lincoln, based in Everett, Wash.
Meanwhile, the San Diego area would have three carriers.
A way to avert that situation would be to place the Reagan in Bremerton rather than San Diego.
Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Tacoma, Wash., called the Reagan home port idea “a very solid recommendation” in an interview published March 14 in the Bremerton Sun newspaper. Dicks added he was “very optimistic about its final approval.”
Hosting a carrier brings a city economic benefits on the scale of a Super Bowl game, Craver said. By extension, he said, hosting three carriers would be like hosting three Super Bowls in one year.
The Navy “fact and justification” message that stirred up the commotion noted the service will pay $141 million in salaries to 3,057 people aboard the Reagan during 2003.
Relocating with the carrier will be 2,102 dependent families, according to the document.
The carrier will have a complement of 2,917 enlisted personnel, making an average salary of $43,338 yearly (when measured across all pay grades), and 158 officers, making an average salary of $93,370 yearly.
The fact and justification document originated in the office of Vice Adm. John B. Nathman, the commander of the Naval Air Force for the U.S. Pacific Fleet, which is based in Coronado.
Asked if the Reagan home port recommendation ultimately originated at North Island, Lt. Cmdr. Dawn Cutler, a spokeswoman at the Navy office of information in Virginia, said she did not know the motivation behind the message. She added the commander’s first priority is that of a war fighter.
A spokesman in Nathman’s office has only said the Navy is evaluating home ports for the Reagan, and that “it would be inappropriate to discuss details until a final decision is made.”
The chamber’s Craver characterized the home port debate as part of the wider Bush administration review of military forces, bases and weapons programs.
A change in administration can bring out all kinds of ideas, Craver added, including the sensitive notion of consolidating branches of the U.S. armed forces.
