Unattended Death and Biohazard Cleanup in Kings Bay Base, GA

Kings Bay Base is an unincorporated community and census-designated place in Camden County, Georgia, that exists entirely because of Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay, the U.S. Navy installation it surrounds and serves.

The Census Bureau counted 2,329 people in the Kings Bay Base CDP in the 2020 census, up from 1,777 in 2010; the place was first listed as a census-designated place in the 1990 census.

Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay was officially established on July 1, 1978, and its initial construction — costing about $1.3 billion — was the largest peacetime construction project in U.S. Navy history.

Kings Bay is the U.S. Atlantic Fleet's home port for Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines armed with Trident II D5 missiles, forming the sea-based leg of the nation's nuclear triad, and it is the only base in the Atlantic fleet capable of supporting the Trident II missile.

The first Trident submarine, USS Tennessee, arrived at Kings Bay in January 1989, and the base grew to host eight Ohio-class submarines, including the guided-missile submarines USS Florida and USS Georgia.

Major commands at Kings Bay include Submarine Group 10, the Trident Refit Facility, the Trident Training Facility, and Strategic Weapons Facility Atlantic.

The base covers about 16,000 acres of Georgia's south Atlantic coast near St. Marys, of which roughly 4,000 acres are protected wetlands, about 38 miles north of Jacksonville, Florida.

More than 9,000 military, civilian, and contractor personnel worked at the installation as of the mid-2010s, making the base the economic engine of Camden County, which had only about 7,300 residents before the Navy arrived.

Kings Bay is being upgraded to receive the new Columbia-class ballistic missile submarines that will replace the aging Ohio-class fleet.