Southeast/ Long Beach : Supporters Make Case for Saving Naval Yard

So if the Long Beach Naval Shipyard is so expendable, how come the Navy wants to reproduce it in San Diego at a cost of $113 million?

That was the kind of question supporters were asking this week in a last-gasp attempt to save the proud 52-year-old shipyard, which once repaired the big destroyers and cruisers damaged in fighting the Japanese in World War II.

The Base Realignment and Closure Commission is expected to vote today on the fate of the shipyard, one of 178 facilities being considered for closure or downsizing.

Leaders of the Southern California Save Our Shipyard Committee took potshots this week at a plan by the Navy to spend millions of dollars in San Diego for facilities that now exist 80 nautical miles away at the Long Beach shipyard.

The Navy has written off Long Beach as “excess capacity.”

“It’s hundreds of millions in avoidable expenses,” said SOS Chairman Bill Gurzi.

A Navy spokesman replied that the Long Beach shipyard--which has the only dry dock within 1,600 miles large enough to handle aircraft carriers--had been targeted only because the Navy has too many shipyards to serve its pared-down fleet.

Closing Long Beach would save $2 billion over the next 20 years, the spokesman said.

The shipyard has 3,100 workers and reportedly brings $757 million in business into the area. The city lost the Long Beach Naval Station last year. . . .