PC to study ship-channel dredging

PANAMA CITY BEACH, Fla. - Combat ships may soon be mooring at Naval Support Activity Panama City following the successful completion of a $185,000 grant for a Bay County feasibility study paid for by the state’s Department of Economic Opportunity. The grant is to determine feasibility of a dredging project to the base that would create a ship-turning basin to allow transit for larger Navy ships into and out of NSA PC. The study – that will include environmental impact - will likely take a year to complete. At issue is the depth and width of the Alligator Bayou channel. Among one of the base’s research areas is the Littoral Combat Ship’s Mine-Countermeasures warfare module. USS Independence (LCS-2) has been conducting Gulf of Mexico MCM testing this summer and using Naval Air Station Pensacola as a temporary homeport despite joint testing activities with NSA PC. The dredging project could also be a feather in NSA PC’s cap to keep it from future Base Realignment And Closure commissions. (Source: Panama City News Herald 08/22/2015) Gulf Coast Shipbuilding and Maritime Note: Bay County has received some $5.5 million is Defense Infrastructure grants since 2000. Also, LCS-2 Independence is the first in class and was built along the Gulf Coast at Austal USA Shipyard in Mobile, Ala.