EVERETT — Anytime uncertainty arises surrounding the Navy, community leaders in Snohomish County pay close attention.

The reminder last week that the USS Abraham Lincoln will leave Everett, possibly forever, in 2013 raised questions about what happens next for the county’s second-largest employer.

A statement from a Washington state congressman that another carrier, the USS Nimitz, would replace the Lincoln was unexpected because it came so early.

Navy officials said repeatedly the decision isn’t final — enough times apparently to convince Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Wash., to retreat from his prediction.

Until the Navy decides what to do, the possibility that Everett could end up empty-handed remains.

That’s why civic and political leaders continue to stress the need to make sure the Navy understands the community’s treasured relationship with the Lincoln and recognizes its economic imprint on the region.

“The Lincoln is part of our lives,” said Connie Niva, an outgoing Port of Everett commissioner and former Everett councilwoman. “What happens next is a major issue for the city of Everett. We do need to be paying attention.”

There’s no panicking because the Lincoln’s departure for mid-life refueling of its nuclear reactors has been known for quite a while.

“There is nothing ominous here. It is time for the community to put pressure on the Navy to name a replacement for the Lincoln,” said Doug Roulstone of Snohomish, a former commanding officer of the USS John C. Stennis and past president of the Navy League.

“Frankly, Everett doesn’t care about who the replacement is, just that there is a replacement,” he said.

A cost-effective base

While civic leaders and elected officials downplay any sense of concern, they know the tremendous economic hit the community would suffer should the Lincoln not be replaced.

They had more serious worries leading into the federal Base Realignment and Closure process in 2005. They united then to keep bases in Everett and around Washington state open.

Naval Station Everett remains the second-largest employer in Snohomish County after Boeing. Its 6,400 military members, civilian employees and private contractors make up a payroll of $230 million a year, said Pat McClain, Everett’s executive director for governmental affairs.

The base itself is small and cost-effective for the Navy to maintain, said retired Navy Capt. Gene Dvornick. Service members stationed there and their families are dispersed throughout the area, unlike at bases with concentrated blocks of government housing.

“They’re just part of the community and they’ve assimilated very nicely,” said Dvornick, who served as commanding officer of Naval Station Everett.

At this point, the Navy is showing no signs of packing up those people — and their spending power — and leaving in 2013.

The Navy has been investing tens of millions of federal tax dollars to construct new barracks, training facilities and a child-care center.

And the Navy needs ports for new ships. It has 283 ships active in the fleet now with plans to add 30 more. Some of those could come to Everett.

USS Ford, USS Ingraham and USS Rodney M. Davis, the frigates based in Everett now, are scheduled to be decommissioned within the next decade, said Rep. Rick Larsen, D-Wash. The timeline could shift depending on how quickly new ships come into service to replace them.

“Any Navy ship would fit into the base and into the community very well,” Dvornick said.

Talk is ‘premature’

Until last week, what will happen when the Lincoln is gone has not been discussed much around Everett.

That changed June 28 when Dicks issued a four-paragraph press release announcing the USS Nimitz would be coming from San Diego to its temporary new homeport at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton.

There it would undergo at least a year of maintenance then, according to Dicks, “the Navy will base the carrier in Everett” as the Lincoln’s replacement.

He backed away from that statement Wednesday after the Navy sent him a one-page memo stating it “would be premature” to discuss the future of the Nimitz after its repairs are done.

“He remains hopeful that the timing and logistics of moving the Nimitz to the Puget Sound would make sense to them move it to Everett as a new homeport,” said Andy DeMott, military legislative assistant for Dicks.

The congressman may be proved correct.

The timing of pier improvements at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and the Nimitz’s scheduled maintenance makes it a likely candidate to replace the Lincoln. Previous homeport changes in the Pacific Northwest to accommodate aircraft carriers’ refueling overhauls on the East Coast have followed a similar pattern.

The carrier USS Carl Vinson left Bremerton, its homeport of eight years, in 2005 for a deployment and headed from there to Norfolk, Va., for refueling and modernization. Its replacement, USS John C. Stennis, came from San Diego. The Vinson is scheduled to move to San Diego after completing its three-year overhaul.

The Nimitz, too, was based in Bremerton before its trip to Norfolk and was replaced by the Vinson, which was based in Alameda, Calif., at the time.

No pressure yet

Larsen first learned of the Lincoln’s refueling schedule in a meeting with Navy leaders a year ago. They told him then that no decisions had been made about the post-Lincoln era in Everett.

He heard the same from the Navy two months ago and his staff received that message again Monday.

Larsen, who serves on the House Armed Services Committee, said he’s been clear with his desire for another carrier at the base.

He hasn’t sensed any push back and rejected the notion the Navy should be pressured into pledging a carrier to the base now.

“There are a lot of things going on in the world right now that I want the Navy to be focused on,” Larsen said. “The decision about replacing the Lincoln does not need to be made immediately for the sake of anybody’s heartburn.”

Everett city officials have talked with the Navy about 2013 and beyond on several occasions in the last two years, said McClain, the city’s governmental affairs director.

“We ask them about it every time. We have an expectation there will be another carrier as replacement for the Lincoln,” he said. “The Navy has its timeline in which it makes these announcements.”

“Everything points to this base serving the Navy for a long time,” McClain said.