INDIAN ISLAND – The Army Corps of Engineers is considering constructing a floating fence around the munitions pier at Naval Magazine Indian Island in Port Townsend Bay, Navy officials say.
The corps is also considering enlarging the security zone around the pier, but neither Sheila Murray, environmental public affairs officer for Navy Region Northwest, nor Chris Haley, Navy public information officer with Navy Region Northwest, could say how much the zone would be enlarged or how large it is now.
“Right now we’re just in the proposal stage,” Murray said.
“The Army Corps of Engineers is working on it.”
Haley said that there is an “exclusionary zone now,” although he said he did not know its size.
“All they’re going to do is add a floating barrier,” Haley said.
The fence would include pontoons on water, with fencing in between.
“It looks like a chain-link fence, but it is solid,” Haley said, adding that it is constructed to stop vessels and would rise about two feet above the water surface.
The new security safeguards are necessary to protect military vessels and the Naval Magazine “from sabotage and other subversive acts, accidents, or incidents of similar nature,” said a July 31 entry in the U.S. Federal Register.
“The regulations are also necessary to protect the public from potentially hazardous conditions that may exist as a result of military use of the area,” the Register entry said.
Public comment on the proposal will be accepted through Aug. 30.
