The Navy's Giant Dry Dock Needed One More Appropriation

THE DRY DOCK APPROPRIATION.

As was noted in recent Washington dispatches, Senator Squire was instrumental in securing $200,000 of the $290,000 estimated by the Bureau of Yards and Docks for completion of the Port Orchard dry dock and necessary work in connection with its acceptance by the government. An examination of the debate on this matter published in the Congressional Record discloses some interesting facts, and, moreover, that good work was done by Mr. Squire in securing nearly the full appropriation desired.

The appropriation as it came from the House was $25,000. After Senate committee action and Senator Squire's detailed explanations, it was finally fixed at $185,000. The original contract price for the work was $491,450. It was afterward increased, on account of lengthening the dock fifty feet and other additional work not originally included, to $607,984.84. The previous amounts appropriated aggregated $490,000. Of the amount secured for the present year, and which was made immediately available, $12,500 is to be expended in dredging an entrance to the dock. It is expected that the contract will be completed early in the coming autumn. It requires that within thirty days after the completion of the dock a vessel shall be put in to test it. Of course this would be impossible unless a channel for entrance shall have been dredged from deep water, which, had this appropriation not been made, could not have been done, and would have delayed acceptance of the work for a year, involving the contractors in serious losses, subjecting the government to a justifiable claim for damages, and preventing use of the dock by government vessels.

The Port Orchard dry dock is the greatest that has ever been constructed or commenced by the United States government. It is the greatest dry dock that exists on the continent of America and one of the four or five greatest in the world. Its cost was originally estimated at $750,000, yet notwithstanding its extension by fifty feet and other modifications made since work was begun, its total cost will be nearly $100,000 less than estimated by the department at Washington. As Senator Squire truthfully declared in urging an appropriation for its completion, 'considering its site and character, it is the cheapest dry dock ever constructed in the world.' It is 750 feet long, 125 feet wide and 30 feet deep. There are two dry docks at Mare Island, one a granite dock 500 feet long, 75 feet wide and 30 feet deep, the other, a 'sectional wood' dock, having a length of 500 feet, a width of 125 feet and only 14 feet deep. The new dock is longer, wider and deeper than either of the others, and will supply a need already seriously felt and which, with the assured increase of Pacific coast commerce within a decade, will be absolutely indispensable.