The U.S. Department of Transportation announced Wednesday that Alabama Shipyard, LLC was one of 27 shipyards to receive funds through its Small Shipyard Grant Program, totaling $20.8 million.

The DOT will provide $718,442 to the shipyard for the purchase of air compressor systems and fire suppression pumps. The shipyard will match those funds for a total investment of close to $1.5 million.

Alabama Shipyard, once a thriving shipyard during World War Two, is now in the process of overhauling its facilities.

“We’ve put in just shy of $35 million over the last four years,” Alabama Shipyard CEO Greg Wagner said. “We’ve upgraded the piers, the bulkheads, dredging, fixed roofs that were damaged in Hurricane Sally, all of it.”

The federal funding will help provide fire suppression pumps at all three of the shipyard’s docks that will use water from the Mobile River to put fires out, Wagner said. In addition, the money will go toward a new compressed air system that will provide clean, compressed air to all of the piers and worksites.