Uss Abraham Lincoln Settles Into New Home Port

The aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln ties up at its new home port here Wednesday, capping a 14-year effort to base a carrier task force on Port Gardner Bay.

However, the Lincoln’s stay may be short: The Navy is studying whether to send it back across Puget Sound to Bremerton.

The Lincoln, a 1,092-foot-long, Nimitz class nuclear carrier, has been at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton since November 1995, undergoing an overhaul. It made the 45-mile trip Wednesday to its new home, a $435 million complex of Navy piers, wharves and warehouses that stretches along Everett’s downtown waterfront.

Bremerton is currently home to the USS Nimitz, which is on duty in the Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf, and will receive another nuclear carrier, the USS Carl Vinson, this month.

Later this year, the Nimitz will leave for a major nuclear refueling in Newport News, Va., and won’t return to the Pacific Fleet until 2001.

No decision on long-term carrier basing is expected until a formal environmental impact statement is completed in about 18 months. Initial hearings will be held in Bremerton and Everett on Feb. 3 and 4.