U.S. Selects Corpus Christi as Top Gulf Warship Port

WASHINGTON — The Defense Department announced plans Tuesday to spread 29 of the nation’s warships among nine home ports on the Gulf Coast, sending the battleship Wisconsin and the training carrier Lexington to Corpus Christi, Tex., and a planned new carrier to Pensacola, Fla.

Corpus Christi also would get three smaller warships under the plan, making it the clear winner in the intense competition among Gulf cities for the Wisconsin and the new jobs that will accompany its home port status.

Goes to Capitol Hill

The plan, which now goes to Capitol Hill, would wrap up a huge operation to find home ports for the Administration’s largest warships.

The proposals, announced by Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger and Navy Secretary John F. Lehman Jr., would be implemented late in this decade at the earliest, the Navy said.

Weinberger stressed that the proposals were contingent on environmental impact findings and other factors. But he said he had approved the overall Navy plan and endorsed the idea of dispersing the ships instead of concentrating them at one or two ports.

The other winners in Tuesday’s home port sweepstakes, which began last year with 16 Gulf Coast cities vying for the Wisconsin, are: New Orleans, La.; Lake Charles, La.; Mobile, Ala.; Pascagoula, Miss.; Gulfport, Miss.; Key West, Fla., and Houston-Galveston, Tex., which had submitted a joint application.