PORT TOWNSEND – The commanding officer of the Navy’s huge Kitsap County complex says the Navy has “major concerns” about the proposed pit-to-pier rock and gravel project on Hood Canal.

A letter from Capt. Reid S. Tanaka to the Jefferson County Department of Community Development is the Navy’s first public comment on the proposal by Poulsbo-based Fred Hill Materials Inc. to construct a four-mile conveyor to take rock and gravel from the Shine pit to a new, 1,000-foot pier on Hood Canal.

From there, barges would be filled with the rock material, then travel under the end portions of the Hood Canal Bridge – a few miles north of the Navy’s Bangor submarine base on the Kitsap side of Hood Canal.

The floating bridge opens midspan to allow the West Coast submarine fleet to pass.