Navy may snub Hampton Roads on new combat ships

As Hampton Roads' leaders try to fend off plans to move a Norfolk-based aircraft carrier to Mayport, Fla., a top naval officer said the Florida base also has the upper hand to get another prize that Norfolk hoped to share.

Mayport Naval Station "is the primary site we're looking at" for the East Coast homeport of the new littoral combat ships, Adm. Gary Roughead, the chief of naval operations, told a congressional panel.

The vessels, built to operate in shallow coastal waters, can be used for surveillance, mine warfare, and hunting submarines. The Navy is receiving 55 of the ships - 32 to be based on the East Coast and 23 on the West Coast.

The Navy recently sent Congress a strategic plan for homeporting the ships.

Mayport would be the primary location, Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek would be secondary and Norfolk Naval Station would be the third location.

When asked for more details about the plan's recommendation for Hampton Roads on Thursday, the Navy did not provide an immediate response.

Roughead told the military construction subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee on Wednesday that Mayport is getting top consideration because the littoral combat ships will replace frigates being phased out there.

U.S. Rep. Ander Crenshaw, a Republican whose district includes Mayport, predicts the base will get 17 of the new ships by 2020 and 15 more later.

Frank Roberts, director of the Hampton Roads Military and Federal Facilities Alliance, said his group expected some of the ships would be based here.

But U.S. Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., said keeping the new ships at the Florida base is a good idea because it bolsters arguments that the Navy shouldn't spend money refurbishing Mayport to be a nuclear carrier port.

"The littoral combat ships can be maintained using Mayport's existing infrastructure," Webb said in an e-mail.

In his written testimony to the subcommittee, Roughead restated the Navy's desire to relocate a carrier to Florida because a catastrophic event in the Hampton Roads area, such as a hurricane or terrorist attack, could "severely limit East Coast carrier operations, even if the ships themselves are not affected."

Hampton Roads officials have been critical of the Navy for failing to produce concrete analysis that backs up their concerns about safety and security. They argue that, with limited defense dollars, other needs should get higher priority than spending $500 million or more to establish a new nuclear carrier base.

Homeporting the new ships and gaining a nuclear-powered carrier would revive Mayport, a Navy facility that has been downsizing.

The Jacksonville-area base had homeported aircraft carriers since 1952 but lost its last carrier when the conventionally powered John F. Kennedy was decommissioned in 2007. The remaining frigates at the base also are scheduled to be decommissioned.

Bill Bartel, (757) 446-2398, bill.bartel@pilotonline.com