KITTERY – The Portsmouth Naval Shipyard should expect a decrease in workload in 2008, according to a spokesman for the U.S. Navy.

Lt. Ohene Gyapong praised the shipyard, which employs more than 4,700 workers, for its work on Los Angeles-class 688 submarines but said on Friday such maintenance is at a peak.

“This workload will begin to decline in 2008 as overall maintenance requirements for the Los Angeles-class submarines wane and engineering refueling overhauls for the submarine class come to an end,” he said. “As a result, it is likely that Portsmouth Naval Shipyard will see a reduction in work load.”

Paul O’Connor, president of the Metal Trades Union at the yard, said the Navy failed to rearrange the workload after an independent commission decided the shipyard will remain open despite closure orders from the Defense Department.

“There should be enough work right up to 2020,” O’Connor said.

By then, the Los Angeles submarines will be obsolete, but O’Connor said the yard’s workers will become efficient at whatever work the Navy needs them to do.

“We can work on anything,” O’Connor said. “We aren’t the best at what we do because we’re genetically inclined to work on 688. We’d be the best in the world on whatever they give us.”

O’Connor has been expressing concerns over the workload and what he said is the Navy’s determination to close Portsmouth.

Gyapong’s prepared statement came in response to inquiries from a newspaper, the Portsmouth Herald. Two of the questions asked by the Herald were not answered, including: How does Portsmouth’s workload schedule today and in the future compare to the other three government-run yards? And, what are the odds this schedule could shift or change in the future?

Senators from both Maine and New Hampshire have said that although maintenance will decline starting in 2008, they believe there is sufficient work available to provide Portsmouth and the other shipyard with a robust workload.