A shipyard modernization project at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam is the most expensive construction project in Navy history. The project, with an estimated price tag of $3.4 billion, was quietly launched six months ago.
HPR attended the anchoring ceremony at Pearl Harbor on Saturday. The Navy symbolically broke ground, installing piles into the pier where work was getting started.
The Hawaiian Dredging Construction Company, in a new joint venture with Dragados and Orion Government Services, was awarded the construction contract in 2023.
The new Dry Dock 5 will be designed with a 150-year service life to replace Dry Dock 3, which cannot dock current Virginia-class Navy submarines that require a deeper and wider dock.
Over the years, the Navy's shipyards have gone from sail to steam to nuclear power. Hawaiʻi's facility is just part of an overhaul of the country's four public shipyards.
Adm. Samuel Paparo, commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, said the Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard is the top-performing shipyard in the country, adding that it "will be decisive in the 21st century."
"This is the jewel in the crown of all of the Navy's shipyards, right here in our island home in the Pacific. And its people serve in the spirit of their World War II forebears," Paparo said at the ceremony. "The country's investment in Dry Dock 5 will give this talented team the tools they need to maintain and repair submarines and ships for the next 100 years, and will keep the peace that we pray for every night."
"The Navy and the nation are investing in the future and bringing these centuries-old facilities into the modern era," he said.
The Hawaiʻi project is part of an estimated $21 billion shipyard infrastructure upgrade plan that includes the three other shipyards in Washington state, Virginia and New Hampshire.
U.S. Sen. Mazie Hirono of Hawaiʻi acknowledged the project's importance to national security but also cautioned the need to complete the project on time and on budget, reminding the Navy of the project at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in New Hampshire that went wildly out of control with cost overruns.
Hirono sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee and chairs the Subcommittee on Readiness and Management Support.
"The Navy was able to apply the lessons learned from Portsmouth to Pearl Harbor by increasing contractor competition, improving coordination and streamlining construction," Hirono said. "The improvements made at the shipyard will have a lasting impact on our workforce and our community for decades to come."
The word "shipyard" automatically makes many Oʻahu residents think of traffic. There are already close to 7,000 shipyard workers at Pearl Harbor. With the idea of possibly adding 2,500 more, some may wonder if the commute is going to get that much worse with big trucks and rigs on the highway.
Navy Capt. Stephen Padhi is in charge of the massive construction project. It is a very, very big job — tons of construction material.
So how do you move all that around from point A to point B? Part of the solution is to create a staging area at the Waipiʻo Peninsula and ferry the steel and supplies across the harbor, less than a mile away.
"It helps from an efficiency standpoint, a safety standpoint, a community partnership standpoint. The steel alone, we're talking about 63,000 tons to bring in all the piles and rebar, etc.," Padhi said. "By having that reception area, we have ample laydown space, and we can, in a very controlled way, bring that material across to the project site when it's ready for installation."
Padhi said the Navy will also avoid adding to the congested roadways by busing in workers from a parking lot at Aloha Stadium.
"Even at peak, we estimate it's only going to bring about, I'd say about eight bus loads per shift, which is a very negligible amount of traffic on the roads," he said, adding that workers coming from the ʻEwa side will be able to use the Honolulu rail and take the shuttle from the stadium.
The Navy said it has also been talking with neighborhood boards about what it’s doing to minimize the impact on surrounding communities.
Construction is expected to be done in early 2028.
This interview aired on The Conversation on Feb. 26, 2024. The Conversation airs weekdays at 11 a.m. on HPR-1. Sophia McCullough adapted this story for the web.
