Military

Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard (NSY)
Pearl Harbor, Hawaii

The Navy established a coaling station at Pearl Harbor in 1842, but practically abandoned it in 1870 because of a policy requiring the use of wind for powering naval vessels. In 1873 General J.M. Schofield submitted a report recommending the US obtain Pearl Harbor. Later that year, a reciprocity agreement was signed allowing Hawaii to ship sugar to the US duty free in exchange for rights to Pearl Harbor and 800 acres of land. On 13 May 1908 Congress authorized almost $3M to establish the Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard.

On December 7, 1941, the Japanese Navy sent aircraft over Oahu in two massive waves, Of 96 warships present, 18 of the major ones were sunk or damaged, while shipyard workers pitched in to help sailors and marines. When the attack was over, the shipyard force began picking up the pieces, with the attack's horrible results before their eyes. USS Oklahoma was overturned, and 1102 bodies were encased forever in the sunken Arizona.

As the largest ship repair facility between the West Coast and the Far East, Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard plays a significant role in maintaining the Navy's capabilities.

The shipyard is situated on the southern shore of the island of Oahu. Five miles to the west lies downtown Honolulu. Eight miles farther west is the famous tourist attraction, Waikiki Beach. Pearl Harbor NSY occupies 308.3 acres, 177 buildings, 32 berths, 4 dry docks, and 3.5M SF of covered work area. The facility value is $1.2B and plant equipment value is $122M.

As of September 1994, the total civilian work force was 4,255. The total military work force was 47. The FY94 budget for the shipyard was $380M.

The physical plant of the shipyard is being upgraded as required to meet current and projected workload. The shipyard has several production shop modernization programs designed to replace obsolete plant equipment no longer capable of meeting current quality and cost saving requirements.

BRAC 2005

In its 2005 BRAC Recommendations, DoD recommended to close the Naval Shipyard Portsmouth, Kittery, ME. As a result, it recommended to relocate Portsmouth's ship depot repair function to Intermediate Maintenance Facility at Pearl Harbor and two other naval stations. This recommendation would retain one nuclear-capable shipyard on each coast, plus sufficient shipyard capacity to support forward deployed assets.