To: The Honorable Richard Blumenthal (U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee), The Honorable Chris Murphy (U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee), The Honorable Joe Courtney (House Armed Services Committee), The Honorable John Larson (House Ways and Means Committee), Governor Ned Lamont, and the Leadership of the Connecticut General Assembly.
Connecticut is the undisputed birthplace of the nuclear submarine. For over seven decades, the multi-generational workforce at General Dynamics Electric Boat in Groton has dedicated their lives to forging the underseas backbone of American national defense. Yet, under standard, unyielding military protocols, when our state’s namesake nuclear warships conclude their service cycles, they are routinely towed thousands of miles away to be systematically dismantled and melted down into anonymous scrap metal.
We, the citizens, veterans, and shipbuilders of Connecticut, say: Bring them home.
The U.S. Navy has scheduled the elite Seawolf-class fast-attack submarine USS Connecticut (SSN-22) for inactivation in 2031, while our capital city's highly decorated namesake vessel, the Los Angeles-class USS Hartford (SSN-768), is executing its final operational lifecycle extension. If we do not act immediately to build a political and industrial coalition, these multi-billion-dollar engineering marvels of Connecticut craftsmanship will be lost to history forever.
We are petitioning our federal, state, and municipal leaders to launch a unified "Namesake Homecoming Hull Initiative" to block the default destruction of these ships and legally claim their complete hulls through the Navy Inactive Ships Donation Program.

A Comprehensive, Industrial Roadmap to Full-Hull Victory:
We recognize that the Navy operates under rigid statutory regulations that prohibit the direct donation of nuclear-powered hulls due to radiological, environmental, and classified technology restrictions. However, using the exact historical blueprint that successfully saved the USS Nautilus (SSN-571), our campaign outlines a meticulous, three-pillar technical and legislative solution:

Pillar 1: The Congressional Mandate & NDAA Statutory Carve-Out
We urge Senators Blumenthal and Murphy to utilize their senior legislative seats to author a specific, legally binding statutory directive within the upcoming National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).
This legislation will officially strike the hulls of SSN-22 and SSN-768 from the standard recycling registry and legally reclassify them as "National Defense Industrial Base and Workforce STEM Assets."
This federal statute will legally compel the Secretary of the Navy to bypass standard Inactive Ships policies and clear both vessels for public donation, effectively removing the Pentagon's ability to issue a standard policy refusal.

Pillar 2: The Ship-Submarine Recycling Program (SRP) "Reactor-Chop" & Declassification Protocol
Under the federally mandated NDAA framework, the Navy will fund and execute a modified version of the Ship-Submarine Recycling Program (SRP) at a specialized naval shipyard:
The Structural Split: Marine engineers will physically cut a 30- to 40-foot section right out of the center of each submarine, completely isolating and removing the nuclear reactor compartment for safe, permanent storage.
Hull Fusion Welding: The shipyard will push the remaining forward (bow) and aft (stern) sections of the submarine back together, performing structural hull-fusion welds to re-establish a seamless, 100% structurally sound, non-nuclear hull.
The Declassification Strip & 3D Replica Integration: To safeguard sensitive national security secrets—particularly the highly classified propulsion acoustics, advanced hull geometries, and sonar suites inherent to the Seawolf-class USS Connecticut—the Navy will completely sanitize the interior spaces. To maintain an authentic museum experience, local Connecticut technical students and apprentice shipbuilders at Electric Boat will utilize advanced 3D-printing and industrial mock-ups to replace the stripped tactical computers and control consoles with realistic, non-functional replicas.
The Funding Mechanism: This multi-million-dollar deconstruction and re-welding process will be fully funded under existing federal defense infrastructure budgets, designated as an active "Industrial Base Training and Critical Welding Apprenticeship Exercise" to train the next generation of civilian defense shipbuilders.

Pillar 3: Advanced Hydrographic and Riverfront Engineering
Squeezing the massive 360-foot, 6,000-ton hull of the USS Hartford up the shallow, 15-foot maintained channel of the Connecticut River is entirely achievable by deploying proven marine salvage techniques:
The Pontoon Buoyancy Lift: Heavy marine salvage engineers will weld temporary, high-volume steel buoyancy pontoons to the exterior sides of the submarine's hull. These tanks will function as giant life jackets, lifting the entire vessel high out of the water and artificially reducing its operational draft from 32 feet down to just 12 feet.
The High-Water Spring Tow: A coordinated fleet of commercial river tugboats will navigate the high-riding hull up the river from Long Island Sound during peak spring freshet conditions when river levels are naturally at their highest.
The Permanent Terrestrial Concrete Cradle: To eliminate the long-term environmental and structural liabilities of a floating river exhibit, the USS Hartford will be winched entirely out of the water via an industrial slipway. It will be permanently placed into a heavy-duty, reinforced concrete foundation cradle integrated directly into the newly proposed Hartford 400 "River Road" parkland at Mortensen Riverfront Plaza. The hull will be positioned safely above the river's 100-year flood zone, with climate-controlled entrance doors precision-cut into the side of the steel hull to provide total public and ADA accessibility.

The Ultimate Legacy for Connecticut's Future:
The USS Connecticut at Groton: Retaining the full Seawolf hull will create a peerless historic achievement for the Naval Submarine Force Museum, creating a breathtaking chronological bridge from early nuclear power (USS Nautilus) to modern undersea dominance. It will permanently cement Groton as the undisputed global capital of naval heritage.
The USS Hartford at the Capital Waterfront: Permanently dry-docking the full hull along the capital city's waterfront will give the Hartford 400 vision and Riverfront Recapture a premier, internationally recognized landmark, driving massive economic foot traffic directly into downtown hotels, restaurants, and the convention center.
Reuniting Our Capital's Scattered History: A full-hull riverfront plaza allows the state to achieve a monumental historical milestone: displaying the modern nuclear hull alongside the historic Civil War-era bell and anchor from Admiral Farragut’s legendary flagship sailing sloop, the original USS Hartford, which currently sit hidden away in separate, disconnected storage locations across the city.

The USS Nautilus proved to the world that the state of Connecticut can successfully pioneer global naval preservation when our community, our shipbuilders, and our politicians rally together.
Sign this petition today to demand that our federal and state representatives intervene, halt the default scrapping mandates, secure the necessary federal funding, and bring the complete hulls of the USS Connecticut and USS Hartford home to the state that built them!