Southeast : Closure Date for Shipyard May Be Moved Up

On the Long Beach docks, rumors almost always come true. Six weeks after rumblings of the naval shipyard’s imminent demise proved to be accurate, the latest rumors are that most workers will lose their jobs 14 months sooner than expected.

A budget memo circulating through the Pentagon suggests that the shipyard, recommended for closure by the Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission, will be shut down in January, 1997. That is more than a year earlier than the yard’s 2,900 employees had anticipated.

Navy officials insist that the proposal is just a possibility, but shipyard workers are girding for the worst.

“Anything the Navy does is not a surprise,” said Bill Gurzi, chairman of the Save Our Shipyard Committee.

To stave off the earlier closure, workers and lawmakers representing the shipyard area will try to attract new work assignments, including repairs to a number of aging U.S. vessels leased to foreign navies. “If the shipyard has work at the end of September, 1996, that makes it impossible to shut it down as early as January, 1997,” Gurzi said.

Last year, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach) pushed to have Long Beach engineers handle repairs on three retired ships leased by the Taiwanese government. Rohrabacher will try to steer similar work to the yard in an upcoming bill, his aides say.