Video Transcript:

GLORIA PENNER: We are already seeing signs of the U.S. Navy expanding its presence in San Diego. Three ships from the Ingleside Naval Station in Texas sailed into the bay today. They're among at least seven ships relocated from Ingleside to San Diego Naval Base. Ingleside will close this year and its 2,500 sailors and their families will transfer to Point Loma. KPBS reporter Alison St John is covering the story and toured one of the newest editions to the fleet. And she joins me now. So Alison, why was San Diego chosen as the base to house all of these ships and personnel from Ingleside.  

ALISON ST JOHN: Well, of course San Diego has a wonderful protected bay, it's 14 miles long. But I think there are three points to be made here. One is that the Navy, like everybody else, is trying to save money. And BRAC, the Base Closure and Realignment Commission, decided three years ago that the ships in Ingleside would do better to be consolidated into the San Diego force. They are minesweepers, they are basically clearing mines and doing underwater protection. And that goes really well with the submarines that are already based in Point Loma. The second point is of course that the United States has a strategic shift going on at the moment of its Navy resources to the West Coast because of the increased threats on the Pacific rim: China, North Korea...

GLORIA PENNER: Those are really increased threats? I mean, we haven't heard very much about them.

ALISON ST JOHN: Well, the Quadrennial Defense review decided to move 10 percent of the Navy assets from the East Coast to the West Coast three years ago. So this is sort of the beginning of that that we're seeing. And I think that the third point to be made, Gloria, is the fact that we had that vote, the Miramar vote, in which we decided not to move the airport to Miramar. And that in a sense was a signal to the military, yes, San Diego is open to the military and you know, accepts them in this community, wants them to be here.

GLORIA PENNER: Well, as a community of course we're trying to figure out just how large this expansion is. Put it into perspective for us.

ALISON ST JOHN: Well, it will increase the number of ships in the San Diego bay significantly. Rear Admiral Len Hering said there were about 72 Navy ships already home-ported in San Diego, and over the next five years we could see about 30 more arriving.

GLORIA PENNER: Another 50 percent over what's already there.

ALISON ST JOHN: Exactly.

GLORIA PENNER: That's huge. 

ALISON ST JOHN: M-hmm, it's big, yeah. I mean the biggest, one of course, will be the third nuclear-powered aircraft carrier.

GLORIA PENNER: I've got to task you, is there enough room in San Diego bay for all those ships and then all that personnel on top of it?

ALISON ST JOHN: I wondered that myself and when I asked I was told "Oh, there's plenty of room." And it will get interesting when navigating in and out of the bay with all the other, you know, commercial and private civilian pleasure yachts in the bay. But civilian traffic is always very considerate of the Navy and gets out of the way when they're coming through, so so far it works just fine. And also many of the ships are of course deployed so they're not all in the bay at any one time, only about 50 percent.

GLORIA PENNER: Well you got sort of a personal preview when you toured one of the ships recently.

ALISON ST JOHN: Well yes, the USS Chief is actually one of the ships that is similar to three that arrived in San Diego Bay this morning, three more from Ingleside. And the captain, John Krisciunas, was very kind to take us around. He explained that this is one of the ships that goes in before the larger ships go in and make sure that the sea is safe, the ocean doesn't have any mines underneath. They have equipment on the stern-end of the ship where they have cables and they have an orange remote-controlled submersible which can go down and detonate mines if they find them. They also have like a torpedo shaped device that simulates the sounds of a ship going overhead. So the USS Chief is all made of wood and does not trigger the mines whereas these devices do.

GLORIA PENNER: You know, this sort of brings up two big questions in my mind. The first is, what will this mean to San Diego's economy? We'll always looking for something to bolster the economy, especially now.

ALISON ST JOHN: It has huge implications for San Diego's economy. I mean, the Navy, the military, the Defense Department already spends 15 billion dollars in San Diego in 2008, according to the last survey taht was done by SDMAC. And it was increasing seven percent a year. I think it's increasing faster now. There was four billion spent on infrastructure before we even saw the money that's been coming now from the Obama adminstration, and almost another billion being spent in San Diego to prepare it for this expansion.

GLORIA PENNER: So this is a good thing for us economically, but I'm wondering about strategically. I mean does it make us a bigger target or can we feel more secure with all this Navy presence here.

ALISON ST JOHN: I think there's two sides to this issue, Gloria. You know, I mean you have to look at the fact that we don't have the prime airport site available to us in town. That's one of the issues. We've got perhaps one of the most significant spot on the West Coast, you know, on the bay there where the Navy Broadway Complex is, turns out it belongs to the federal government so the local area can't control what's build there. We've had you know a couple of crashes recently, one right in the middle of our communities. You know, that is something you have to bear in mind when you have the military in the community. And possibility of more polution in the ocean affecting the marine life, I mean there are downsides and upsides to this whole equation.

GLORIA PENNER: Well thank you very much, Alison St John.