Defense bill funds deeper channel in Mayport, Fla.

Hampton Roads’ congressional delegation has lost the battle to halt the spending of $76 million for dredging and docking upgrades at a Florida naval base.

But local lawmakers say the war with Florida over the larger issue – the possible permanent move of an aircraft carrier from Norfolk to Mayport Naval Station – will go on.

A House-Senate conference report on the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal 2010 contains the money for the Mayport dredging, despite the Virginia delegation’s efforts to block it. The full House is expected to approve the measure today , with a Senate vote scheduled next week.

At the Virginians’ insistence, the conferees included language making it clear that the upgrades at Mayport are intended to facilitate temporary docking and are not necessarily a precursor to establishing Mayport as a permanent homeport for a nuclear-powered carrier.

Nevertheless, Florida lawmakers clearly see the project as the first step in that direction.

In a news release Wednesday announcing the approval of the dredging funds, U.S. Rep. Ander Crenshaw, R-Fla., cited Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ support for ending Norfolk Naval Station’s status as the only homeport for nuclear-powered carriers on the East Coast.

Gates and Adm. Gary Roughead, the chief of naval operations, say it’s a strategic risk to have the entire East Coast carrier fleet in one place, vulnerable to a terrorist attack or hurricane.

Mayport lost its only aircraft carrier when the conventionally powered John F. Kennedy was decommissioned in 2007.

U.S. Rep. Glenn Nye, a Hampton Roads Democrat who was one of the budget conferees, said in a statement that he strongly disagreed with the decision to fund the Mayport dredging project. But he added that he was pleased with the restrictive language added by the conferees.

“The Navy has said on multiple occasions that the dredging would only be for transient docking,” Nye said.

“That restriction is written in the conference report language, and I intend to hold them to that pledge.”

However, Rep. Randy Forbes, another conferee, said the conference report is a cause for worry in Hampton Roads. “I am gravely concerned,” the local Republican said in a statement, that it “may lay the foundation to send an aircraft carrier to Mayport.”

With shrinking defense budgets and the prospect of losing more than 5,000 sailors and their families, Virginia politicians have lobbied hard to keep all five Norfolk-based carriers and their as­sociated economic benefits.

In April, under pressure from the Virginians, the Pentagon said the question of moving a carrier to Mayport would be studied as part of its upcoming Quadrennial Defense Review, delaying a final decision until 2010.

Bill Sizemore, (757) 446-2276, bill.sizemore@pilotonline.com