PORT TOWNSEND — Capt. Jonathan Kurtz, commander of Naval Magazine Indian Island, says that only about two nuclear submarines a year are expected to dock at the base to pick up non-nuclear weapons and do minor maintenance.
“This is the point I’m trying to make — it’s not a big deal,” Kurtz told Monday’s Port Townsend Chamber of Commerce luncheon meeting in The Commons at Fort Worden State Park.
“We’ll be loading the submarines with similar ordnance that we do the destroyers. To us it’s not a mission change.”
Kurtz also said Indian Island had one of the Navy’s best safety record and that a safety inspection of the facility in 2005 came up with a score of 99.6 percent.
Indian Island is one of the main conventional weapons depots for warships and cargo ships of the Pacific Fleet.
Bullets, bombs, cruise missiles and torpedoes are stored in climate-controlled concrete and earthen bunkers.
The military ordnance arrives by truck over the Hood Canal Bridge and through Port Hadlock, and by sea.
No nuclear weapons are handled at Indian Island, Kurtz said.
The Navy announced in October that newly refitted, 560-foot Ohio-class submarines would use Indian Island to load and unload conventionally armed Tomahawk cruise missiles and torpedoes that are stored there, and to take care of minor maintenance needs.
The refitted subs — redesigned to help support “the global war on terror” and carry special operations forces — do not carry nuclear missiles but are nuclear-powered, the Navy said.
There is not enough room for them at Naval Base Kitsap in Bangor.