Naval Port Makes a Case for Expansion

Something is missing at Naval Station Mayport — specifically, ships and sailors

The numbers of both ships and sailors in the naval base have been dwindling since budget constraints put on hold the dreams of local leaders to get an aircraft carrier transferred to the base near Jacksonville, which hasn’t had one since the John F. Kennedy was decommissioned in 2007. As of March 28, just 19 ships called the base home with a total of 5,017 sailors. In the 1980s, the base boasted two aircraft carriers, 28 combatants and nearly 30,000 sailors.

Since 2000, the Navy has sent only one ship to the base, the destroyer Farragut in 2006. With the promise of an aircraft carrier gone for now, both the base’s future and the local economy hinge on attracting new ships.

“On the East Coast, this is a prime place to put a carrier,” Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jon Greenert told a lunch gathering of the Jacksonville Area Ship Repair Association. “We are still committed to strategic dispersal for all of our classes of ships.”

Building the nuclear maintenance facility required for a carrier home port would cost $500 million to $1 billion. But there’s no funding slated for that construction for the next five years, and Greenert didn’t say how long that funding would be delayed.

That expenditure caused Virginia lawmakers to fight the carrier move to Mayport, saying spending the money to build that facility when other existing Navy facilities were in need of repair wasn’t responsible in the current budget environment.The Navy listened, opting to put off the carrier move. Instead, officials announced that an amphibious ready group would shift to Mayport by 2015, though the actual ships and timelines have yet to be confirmed.