PSNS & IMF provides the Navy with maintenance, modernization, and technical and logistics support, and employs 15,000 people which makes it the largest public shipyard in terms of personnel assigned.

During World War II, the shipyard's primary effort was the repair of battle damage to ships of the U.S. fleet and those of its allies.

In the late 1950s, it entered an era of new construction with the building of a new class of guided missile frigates.

Approximately 25% of the shipyard's workload involves inactivation, reactor compartment disposal, and recycling of ships.

This process places the U.S. Navy in the role of being the world's only organization to design, build, operate, and recycle nuclear-powered ships.

The landfill is an "ongoing source of pesticides, polychlorinated biphenyls and metals flowing downstream with the potential to affect groundwater wells, sport fisheries and the Suquamish Tribe's fish hatchery.