SEAL BEACH : Long Beach Closure Could Aid Navy Base

The closing of the Long Beach Naval Shipyard could bring military personnel and programs to the Seal Beach Naval Weapons Station, which was spared from the latest round of federal base closings.

If Congress on Sept. 1 approves the shipyard closing as expected, eight military-support headquarters will move from Long Beach to the Seal Beach weapons base, along with 137 employees, said Joe Harkins, a weapons-station management analyst.

The programs would come to the 5,000-acre weapons station as tenants. The Seal Beach operations would not expand, Councilman Frank Laszlo said, but the consolidation could help spare the base from future cutbacks.

The closing of the Long Beach Naval Shipyard would be a two-year process, Harkins said, with most of the military support services moving to Seal Beach near the end of the process.

The relocation would include West Coast headquarters for military records, personnel support, ship-building inspection, food inspection, workplace-safety inspection and criminal investigations, Harkins said.

The 50-year-old weapons station supplies most of the Navy’s surface-to-air missiles to the Pacific Fleet, which is based in San Diego. There are about 500 civilian and 170 military employees at the weapons base now. The civilian work force has been cut about 50% during the past four years.