[CPEO-MEF] CLOSURE: "Mare Island Naval Shipyard [CA] closure, 20 years later"

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

Mare Island Naval Shipyard closure, 20 years later
Economic recovery still being felt in Vallejo

By Rachel Raskin-Zrihen
Vallejo Times-Herald (CA)
March 31, 2016

Tom Watson of Vallejo said his life changed forever when the Mare Island Naval Shipyard closed — 20 years ago today, April 1, 1996.

“I lost my job, all my friends and my house, with the subsequent housing market crash. I ended up in the Priority Placement Program, getting a job with the U.S. Army as a Public Works electrician in Washington state,” remembers Watson, who worked on submarines at the shipyard after leaving the Navy in 1973 after serving on the USS Guitarro. “It broke up my family. My son wouldn’t come. He stayed in Vacaville. It was pretty much a nightmare.”

Age 45 in 1996, Watson said the base closure, which he blames on the end of the Cold War and California’s political climate at the time, was ultimately responsible for how hard this area was hit by the foreclosure crisis as well as for the 2008 bankruptcy.

“They devastated the entire area’s economy,” he said.

…

For the entire article, see
http://www.timesheraldonline.com/general-news/20160331/mare-island-naval-shipyard-closure-20-years-later

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Lenny Siegel
Executive Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
a project of the Pacific Studies Center
278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org

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