Aug. 07--WASHINGTON -- The Navy has cancelled plans to repair the fire-damaged U.S.S. Miami submarine at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in light of higher-than-anticipated costs and federal budget cuts, officials announced Tuesday.
The Navy estimated it would take an additional $390 million in Fiscal Year 2014 to repair the Miami, a nuclear-powered submarine severely damaged by an arsonist at the Maine shipyard in 2012. As a result, the submarine will be permanently removed from service and the repair money diverted elsewhere.
"The decision to inactivate Miami is a difficult one, taken after hard analysis and not made lightly," Rear Adm. Rick Breckenridge, director of Undersea Warfare with the Navy, said in a statement Tuesday evening.
"We will lose the five deployments that Miami would have provided over the remaining 10 years of her planned service life, but in exchange for avoiding the cost of repairs, we will open up funds to support other vital maintenance efforts, improving the wholeness and readiness of the fleet."
It was unclear Tuesday evening how the decision would affect the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, which employs roughly 4,700 civilian workers. Members of the Maine and New Hampshire congressional delegations, however, said that Navy officials indicated the inactivation process and other planned maintenance projects will continue to provide a "consistent workload" to the shipyard employees.
A portion of the repairs were slated to be performed at the shipyard by employees of Electric Boat, a Connecticut-based division of General Dynamics that builds submarines.
In a joint statement, the four senators from Maine and New Hampshire said they recognized that the repair costs were rising but said they were disappointed, especially considering the role that the so-called "sequestration" budget cuts apparently played in the decision.
"Inactivating the Miami will mean a loss to our nuclear submarine fleet -- yet another unfortunate consequence of the across-the-board cuts known as sequestration," said Maine Sens. Susan Collins and Angus King and New Hampshire Sens. Jeanne Shaheen and Kelly Ayotte. "We will continue to work together to find a responsible budget solution that replaces sequestration."
U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree, a Democrat whose district includes Kittery, called it "outrageous" that the ship won't be put back into service because of sequestration. Pingree voted against the law setting up the budget cuts, which were designed to be so austere that Congress and the White House would find an alternative way to reduce the federal deficit.
Absent congressional action, the cuts took effect in March.
"I am deeply disappointed by the decision not to repair the Miami," Pingree said in a statement. "I had a long conversation with Admiral [William Hunter] Hilarides this afternoon and he made it very clear that both the deep budget cuts and the uncertainty caused by the sequester had a significant impact on that decision. It is shameful that this ill-conceived law has contributed to the loss of work at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard."
A Los Angeles-class attack submarine, the Miami was in dry docks at the Kittery shipyard for an overhaul in May 2012 when an employee purposely set a fire because he reportedly wanted to leave work early. The blaze caused hundreds of millions of dollars in damages but Navy officials have consistently said they hoped to put the vessel back into service.
The repairs were expected to cost approximately $450 million and continue into the spring of 2015. Earlier this year, members of the Maine and New Hampshire congressional delegations worked to secure an additional $150 million for the repairs to offset the budget cuts caused by sequestration.
But the Navy said inspections revealed that "a significant number of components" would have to be replaced in the submarine's torpedo room and auxiliary machinery room. Ultimately, the Navy decided that it was more cost effective to decommission the submarine rather than cancel "dozens" of projects on other ships and subs, Breckenridge said.
"The Navy and the nation simply cannot afford to weaken other fleet readiness in the way that would be required to afford repairs to Miami," he said.
The man who set fire to the sub, 25-year-old Casey James Fury, was sentenced to 17 years in prison and ordered to pay $400 million in restitution last month.
Fury apparently set the fire because he wanted to get out of work early. About 50 people were aboard the submarine at the time and the blaze quickly spread. More than 100 firefighters helped fight the fire, with many working inside the submarine's cramped and darkened interior. Five firefighters were injured fighting the blaze.
"This was the worst fire I've ever seen," Eric Hardy, a firefighter at the shipyard, said at the time. "If it weren't for sheer luck, we would have had a death on that boat."
Commissioned in June 1990, the Miami measures 362 feet long, 33 feet wide at its breadth and carried a crew of 133 enlisted personnel and officers. The submarine was built in Groton, Conn.
Copyright 2013 - Portland Press Herald, Maine
