The following statement was presented by Mr. Thomas Morley on behalf of the Public Works Department, Portsmouth Naval Shipyard at Kittery Water District’s meeting of the Board of Trustees on March 19, 2025:
The Kittery Water District has been providing water service to PNSY (Portsmouth Naval Shipyard) and the surrounding area for over 100 years. Today, PNSY employs a workforce of professionals dedicated to the safe overhaul, repair, and modernization of the U.S. Navy’s nuclear-powered attack submarine fleet, specifically Los Angeles and Virginia-class submarines. Shipyard personnel provide quality overhaul work in a safe, timely, and affordable manner. To support a more modern and technologically advanced Naval fleet, PNSY must strengthen the resiliency of its utility infrastructure.
As part of SIOP, the Navy’s Shipyard Infrastructure Optimization Program to modernize and recapitalize the public shipyards, PNSY identified the need to improve the reliability, resiliency, and capacity of the power and water utility systems. Shipyard engineers began by examining ways to reduce overall consumption before calculating PNSY’s future requirements for capacity. After several years of research, study, and collaboration with our utility providers, a project is being designed to increase resiliency and redundancy in the system and meet current and future utility demands of PNSY. This project is referred to as the P1080 PNSY Water & Power Resiliency Project.
The Navy has contracted with KWD and Wright Pierce to design and permit the water upgrades and is fully funding that cost. Separately, the Navy is contracting with Central Maine Power (CMP) to design power supply and reliability upgrades and the Navy is designing complementary improvements to on-base utility systems.
Under a future agreement, the Navy will contract with KWD to upgrade the Water Treatment Plant (WTP) capacity and improve the water distribution system. KWD will retain complete ownership and authority over the proposed system upgrades and the land where those upgrades will take place. While these upgrades are being implemented to meet the Navy’s requirements, the improvements will also enhance water reliability, resiliency, and capacity for all KWD customers. This will be a government funded utility upgrade project with no direct cost to the KWD customers/ratepayers.
Kittery Water District will be coordinating with the Public Works Department, Portsmouth Naval Shipyard to provide accurate and timely information as this very important project progresses. We are providing a Q&A here on the website. If you have additional questions, please feel free to contact us at info@kitterwater.org.
