Landlocked Dallas to be site of major maritime museum

Plans are afoot to build a major maritime museum in Dallas. You heard right.

The $80 million Dallas Maritime Museum will be on a 3.5-acre site near the Trinity River, but more than 250 miles from the nearest body of salt water. Plans will be officially announced Friday morning by Mayor Mike Rawlings and members of a foundation formed to create the new facility.

 

 The USS Dallas, a 362-foot nuclear-powered submarine, will be displayed next to the museum building. The submarine is scheduled for decommissioning in 2014.

“Dallas is a city of big ideas, and this is just one more example,” said Phillip Jones, president and CEO of the Dallas Convention and Visitors Bureau, which is backing the idea. “Lots of people are excited about this.”

One big idea is to acquire and display the 362-foot nuclear-powered attack submarine USS Dallas next to a 30,000-square-foot museum building. Foundation officials said naval authorities have approved the transfer once the vessel is removed from active duty.

The submarine is scheduled for decommissioning in 2014. It would be another 21/2 years before the vessel is ready for public display.

“By that time we want to have the museum ready,” said John Shellene, the foundation’s executive director. “We’re in the early stage of the fundraising process.”

Shellene said the money will largely come from private sources, though he said backers may apply to the city for additional funding.

Museum plans call for two other major acquisitions besides the submarine. Shellene declined to elaborate, other than to say that one of the exhibits “would excite people not just on the national, but the international, level.”

Rollie Stevens, a retired Navy captain who is the foundation’s president, said the idea was launched in 2009 after he and other local military supporters became aware that the USS Dallas was scheduled to leave active duty.

The idea was also conceived as a way to create an attraction in southern Dallas along the Trinity River Corridor, he said. The foundation has acquired land on Riverfront Boulevard in the Rock Island area for the project.

“We look upon its purpose as education, but also as a living memorial to the contributions North Texas has made to the Navy, the Coast Guard and the merchant marine,” he said.

While the city is not usually regarded as a major seaport, Dallas is still a logical place for a maritime museum, he said.

“It’s important to know that North Texas is the No. 1 recruiting area in the country for the Navy,” he said. “Last year in the Veterans Day parade, the Navy had 100 new recruits, as big as the Army.”

Jones, too, believes North Texas’ strong military tradition makes the museum a logical step. The facility would draw national tours specializing in retirees and military veterans, he said.

“This gives Dallas a good balance of attractions. It’s a needed addition in South Dallas,” Jones said.

The Cambridge, Mass.-based research firm ConsultEcon, commissioned by the foundation to study the feasibility of the museum, did not estimate the number of visitors the facility might attract. Its executive summary concluded, however, the Dallas Maritime Museum “has the potential to be one of the strongest tourist attractions in the city and the state.”

Stevens said visitors would be able to walk through the three levels inside the submarine. Though other cities have submarines, he said, Dallas would be the only place a nuclear-powered attack submarine could be viewed entirely out of water.

The USS Dallas has been part of the American naval defense for 32 years. There has been a lack of major sea battles during that time, but the USS Dallas achieved a kind of notoriety, if only a fictional one, by being a major component of the Tom Clancy thriller The Hunt for Red October.

Its journey to the city after which it is named may be its most epic journey.

After decommissioning ceremonies in Connecticut, the submarine will be towed along the Atlantic seaboard, through the Panama Canal and up the Pacific Coast to Puget Sound, Stevens said.

There the nuclear reactor and other classified components will be removed. The stripped-down vessel will then be towed back through Panama to Houston. The vessel, which is longer than a football field, will be dismantled, and its parts hauled to Dallas on the backs of trucks.

Once here, it will be reassembled.

“It will take a lot of planning,” Shellene said. “But it can be done.”

Description: Los Angeles-class, nuclear-powered, fast attack submarine

Length: 362 feet

Beam: 33 feet

Speed: Greater than 25 knots

Dead weight: 375 long tons, which are each 2,240 pounds

Commissioned: July 18, 1981

Homeport: Groton, Conn.

History: The USS Dallas was the first U.S. Navy ship to be named for the Texas city. It was initially attached to Submarine Development Squadron 12 in New London, Conn., and was used for research and development projects. In 1988, it became a member of Submarine Squadron 2 in New London. It has had one Indian Ocean deployment, three Mediterranean deployments and seven North Atlantic deployments.

SOURCES: U.S. Naval Vessel Register; U.S. Navy websites

Navy's Fort Worth arrives in Galveston - Western-style

The crew of what officially will become the USS Fort Worth at its commissioning Saturday is, in the spirit of the city, donning Western-style hardhats as the newest of the Navy's next-generation coastal water combat ships arrived Monday in Galveston.

The crew has even nicknamed the mess decks "Cowtown," said T.D. Smyers, chairman of the nonprofit USS Fort Worth Commissioning and Support Committee.

"They're a very motivated bunch of sailors," said Smyers, a retired Navy captain and former commander of Fort Worth's Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base. "They're motivated to carry the name of Fort Worth. It's pretty cool to see them adopting the part."

The ship, launched in Wisconsin and built by Lockheed Martin and partners, arrived in Galveston after a lengthy trip that began in the Great Lakes and moved down the St. Lawrence River toward Nova Scotia and the Atlantic Ocean.

The Fort Worth will become the first Navy vessel to carry the name of the nation's 16th largest city, after a lengthy campaign by U.S. Rep. Kay Granger. The Navy has sent into service vessels named after Dallas, Houston, San Antonio and Corpus Christi.

Small ship, big spirit

The Fort Worth will be Navy's third littoral combat ship, a speedy, light, maneuverable vessel designed to work in shallow waters, if necessary, and carrying easy-to-switch modules for missions such as mine detection, anti-submarine warfare and surface warfare against such threats as terrorists.

The post-9-11 idea was envisioned by Gordon England, the deputy defense secretary under President George W. Bush and former CEO of Lockheed Martin Fort Worth. After the commissioning, the Fort Worth will sail to its new home base, San Diego, Calif.

A raft of Fort Worth dignitaries are to attend this week's activities. They include England, who will keynote the commissioning; Granger; Fort Worth Mayor Betsy Price and City Council members; former Mayor Mike Moncrief; North Texas Congressman Michael Burges; former Texas Secretary of State Roger Williams; and Congressman Reid Riddle of Wisconsin, whose Marinette Marine shipyard launched the ship in 2010. The vessel since then has been undergoing tests and being outfitted.

Four tour buses of youths and chaperones from the Arlington Heights and Joshua high schools Junior ROTC units, the Lone Star and Forrestal squadron of the Naval Sea Cadet Corps, and Arlington's Boy Scout Troop 380 are headed to the commissioning, Parker said. Veterans groups such as the Tin Can Sailors are also coming, she said.

Tickets are free to Saturday's 10 a.m. commissioning at Pier 21, and only a small number of the 3,200 remained Monday, said Mattie Parker, director of the commissioning committee.

"There is very limited availability of tickets left," Parker said. For more information, visit the website www.ussfortworth.org.

For people who can't make it to Galveston, a simulcast in downtown Fort Worth is scheduled from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Saturday on the parking lot at Fourth Street, between Houston and Throckmorton streets. The sponsors -- Sundance Square, the commissioning committee and Downtown Fort Worth Inc. -- are rolling in a 9-by-16-foot TV screen.

The Navy is paying for the commissioning ceremony, but the commissioning committee has been raising money to throw a Friday night "Black Tie and Boots" gala in Galveston, which will host the crew and their families for free, and help fund recreational improvements to the ship and support for families in the coming years.

Fundraising ahead

The ship is expected to be in the fleet for 30 or more years. Williams, who was committee chair before stepping aside, helped raise more than $300,000.

The two envision fundraising continuing throughout the life of the ship.

"We basically have ownership in this ship for several generations, " Williams said. "We want to be able to help the crew and, when they come to Fort Worth, honor them, because they're going to represent our community all over the world."

Monday, the committee and Texas Rangers are hosting 20 members of the crew at the Rangers' home game in Arlington. One of the ship's two commanding officers is to throw out the first pitch.

The committee will consult with the Navy to determine the ship's needs, Smyers and Williams said.

Smyers envisions such possibilities as books, games, tools that allow sailors to communicate with family members and exercise equipment. Williams said scholarships are also a possibility.

"We'll be working with the crew very, very closely to see what kinds of things make a difference in their welfare," Smyers said.

The committee would also be available to help families that struggle after a sailor is deployed, Smyers said. The committee is looking into sponsoring a family day this fall, he said.

The Navy has committed to buying at least 20 of the ships through 2015 at a cost of about $7 billion. Ten will be from Lockheed Martin, and 10 from a General Dynamics-led team. Lockheed produced the first littoral ship, and GD the second.

Free tours of the soon-to-be USS Fort Worth are available, 1 p.m.-4 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, with the last tour starting at 3:30 p.m.

Navy battleship springs massive leak

LA PORTE, Texas — Children shimmy up the barrels of massive cannons on the upper decks of the 100-year-old battleship Texas oblivious to the tension in the historic vessel’s belly where a crew works on pumping out dozens of gallons of oil-laced water.

photo - Norman Snipe climbs out of a tank on the port side of the USS Texas after repositioning a pump hose Wednesday in Houston. AP Photo

Norman Snipe climbs out of a tank on the port side of the USS Texas after repositioning a pump hose Wednesday in Houston. AP Photo

Staff arrived Saturday and immediately noticed something was wrong with the ship that fought in World Wars I and II and has served since 1948 as a memorial and museum to those who sacrificed their lives.

The vessel was sitting awkwardly in its slip. She was lower in the water and listing to the left.

“We got down to the lower portions of the ship and discovered that we had taken on more water than usual in areas that we normally don’t,” ship manager Andy Smith said. “They started pumping throughout the day Saturday, and it got progressively worse.”

The situation was so dire by Sunday that the ship’s caretaker, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, had to find more pumps to help remove the water. Smith said the news got worse on Monday.

Water had entered areas that housed old oil tanks used when the ship was still in active duty and serving in every theater in World War II. The Navy had emptied out the oil before handing the vessel over to Texas, but hadn’t cleaned out the tanks. Smith realized he had an environmental issue on his hands.

He hired a company to skim the oil off the top of the water.

It is possible, he said, that the oil will be completely removed by late Wednesday. Then, it should only take a few hours to remove the water, though Smith said he is preparing for the possibility that more water will flow in for a short time due to a change in pressure.