Accidents | DMZ Hawai'i/Aloha 'Aina

What does an F-22 cost?

Post Date March 28, 2009

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Author Laurel Mei-Singh

Category Accidents, Military Appropriations, Earmarks

http://original.antiwar.com/wheeler/2009/03/27/what-does-an-f-22-cost/

What Does an F-22 Cost?

Posted By Winslow T. Wheeler On March 27, 2009 @ 8:00 pm In Uncategorized | Comments Disabled

On Wednesday, March 25, an F-22 crashed near Edwards Air Force Base, CA. Very sadly, the pilot was killed. The news articles surrounding this event contained some strange assertions about the cost of the F-22. The tragic event was apparently used to disseminate some booster-baloney.

Possibly based on the price asserted in the Air Force’s “fact” sheet on the F-22 that was linked to a Pentagon “news” story on the crash, the cost per aircraft was typically described in many media articles as about $140 million.

What utter hogwash.

The latest “Selected Acquisition Report” from the Defense Department is the most definitive data available on the costs for the F-22. The SAR shows a “Current Estimate” for the F-22 program in “Then-Year” dollars of $64.540 billion, which includes both R&D and procurement. That $64.5 billion has bought a grand total of 184 aircraft.

Do the arithmetic: $64.540/184 = $350.1. Total program unit price for one F-22, what approximates the “sticker price,” is $350 million per copy.

So, where does the bogus $143 million per copy come from? Most will recognize that as the “flyaway” cost: the amount we pay today, just for the current production costs of an F-22. (Note, however, the “flyaway” cost does not include the gas, pilot, et cetera needed to fly the aircraft away.)

Advocates of buying more F-22s assert they can be had for this “bargain basement” $143 price in their lobbying – now rather intense – to buy more F-22s above and beyond the 184 currently contracted for. That is, they argue, the “cost to go” for buying new models, which do not require a calculation to amortize the early R&D and other initially high production costs across the fleet. It’s what we’re paying now for F-22s in annual appropriations bills. Right?

Hopefully, it will neither surprise nor offend you to say that assertion is pure bovine scatology.

Congressional appropriations bills and their accompanying reports are not user-friendly documents, but having wadded through them for the past 30 years, I know their hiding holes. The F-22 program has many. Let’s check through the 2009 congressional appropriations for the F-22. Most – but not all – of the required information is contained in HR 2638.

In the “Joint Explanatory Statement” accompanying the bill, the House and Senate appropriators specified that $2.907 billion was to be appropriated for 20 F-22s in 2009. The math comes to just about what the Air Force said, $145 million per copy. So, what’s the problem?

There’s more; plenty more. Flipping down to the section on “modification of aircraft” we find another $327 million for the F-22 program.

Switching over to the Research and Development section, we find another $607 million for the F-22 under the title “Operational System Development.”

Some will further know it is typical for DOD to provide “advance procurement” money in previous appropriations bills to support the subsequent year’s purchase of major equipment. In the case of the 2009 buy of 20 F-22’s, the previous 2008 appropriations bill provided “advance procurement” for “long lead” items needed to be purchased in advance to enable the 2009 buy. The amount provided was $427 million.

Here’s the arithmetic: $2.907 + $.327 + $.607 + $.427 = $4.268 billion for 20 aircraft. That’s $213 million each.

Please do not think these data represent an exceptional year. If you check any of the last few annual buys of F-22s, you will find the same pattern: in addition to the annual “procurement” amount, there is additional “modification,” “operational system development,” and advance procurement.

F-22s are costing these days a little over $200 million each. Period.

Well, actually, there’s more. Last November, Acquisition Czar John Young told the press that the first 100 F-22’s built need an additional $8 billion in R&D and procurement costs to bring them all up to their originally mandated requirements. Ergo, the total program unit cost is not $350 million each, it’s $394 million, assuming Young is correct. The annual purchase, “cost to go” (“flyaway”), price will also go up, but just how much is not calculable right now.

For those sticklers who also want to know how much it will cost to maintain and operate the F-22, you can forget all those promises that it would be cheaper than the aging F-15 it is supposed to replace. Data released by the Pentagon shows that for 2008 each aging F-15 C in the inventory cost, on average, $607,072.92 to maintain and operate. Pricey, but to be expected for such an old airplane.

The F-22’s care and feeding is a little more. In 2008, each cost $3,190,454.72 to maintain and operate: that’s more than five time the cost to run a decrepit F-15.

OK, so the F-22 is really pricey and the Air Force and its boosters are full of baloney on the cost, but it’s a great airplane, a real war winner, right?

Oh, please. Consider the source. More on that later.

F-22 fighter crash near Edwards AFB, pilot killed

Post Date March 26, 2009

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Author Laurel Mei-Singh

Category Accidents

F-22 Fighter Crashes Near Edwards AFB

Last Update: 12:33 am

EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. (AP) – One of the Air Force’s top-of-the-line F-22 fighter jets crashed Wednesday in the high desert of Southern California. The pilot was killed in the crash. That pilot, 49-year-old David Cooley, was an employee of defense contractor Locakheed Martin. Cooley spent 21 years in the Air Force before joining the company in 2003.

The F-22 Raptor crashed 35 miles northeast of Edwards Air Force Base, Pentagon spokesman Gary Strassburg said. He had no information about the area where the jet crashed. The jet, assigned to Edwards’ 412th Test Wing, was on a test mission. Calls to the base public affairs phone numbers were answered by recording machines.

The radar-evading F-22s each cost $140 million and are designed for air dominance. The warplanes can carry air-to-air missiles but are capable of ground attack as well. The $65 billion F-22 program is embattled, with some opponents contending that a different warplane under development, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, is more versatile and less costly at $80 million per plane.

The U.S. is committed to 183 F-22s, down from the original plan laid out in the 1980s to build 750. Its prime contractor, Lockheed Martin Corp., says there are 95,000 jobs at 1,000 companies connected to the F-22.

A spokesman for Bethesda, Md.-based Lockheed Martin referred all calls about the crash to the Air Force. Lockheed is trying to convince the Pentagon to buy as many as 20 more F-22s. The military is expected to signal its intentions when the 2010 Defense Department budget is released next month.

The F-22 is able to fly at supersonic speeds without using afterburners. That allows it to reach and stay in a battlespace faster and longer without being easily detected.

The fighter, powered by two Pratt & Whitney engines, is 62 feet long, has a wingspan of 44½ feet and is flown by a single pilot.

Source: http://www.local12.com/content/breaking_news/story/F-22-Fighter-Crashes-Near-Edwards-AFB/hgaAUgPzikiW8ApjfkuJrQ.cspx

Classified military operations coincided with fish kill

Post Date March 18, 2009

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Author Laurel Mei-Singh

Category Accidents, Environmental Impacts

This investigative story was posted on the Hawaii Independent. What was DARPA doing in the area off of Ni’ihau? Why won’t they tell the public?

Classified military operations coincided with fish kill

Posted March 17th, 2009 in Niihau by Joan Conrow

A Navy contractor was engaged in classified operations around Ni‘ihau in mid-January when a major fish kill and dead humpback whale calf were reported on the island’s shores.

Chris Swenson, coastal program administrator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said crews involved with a project to eradicate rats on Lehua had to leave the islet “four or five times” between Jan. 3 and 21 to accommodate classified military operations on the north end of Ni’ihau.

Lehua is about a half-mile from Ni’ihau, where thousands of fish began washing up on Jan. 17 and a dead humpback whale calf was seen on Jan. 21. Another humpback whale calf washed up between Kekaha and Kauai’s Pacific Missile Range Facility (PMRF) on Feb. 9, and a mass kill of squid and lanternfish was discovered at Kauai’s Kalapaki Bay on Jan. 20. Scientists do not know if the events are related.

Swenson said that a representative of DARPA – the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which develops and tests new technology for the Department of Defense – told him that Fish and Wildlife crews could not be on Lehua at night between Jan. 3 and mid-February. The same DARPA official told him that Ni‘ihau residents also had been told to stay off the north part of their island during that time.

PMRF spokesman Tom Clements previously refused to confirm whether military activities had been conducted on the range, saying only: “If an anomaly occurred at that time that people are trying to connect to our activities, we’re saying they were no different than the activities that have been done on the range over the past 40 years.”

According to the DARPA website, “Over the years, DARPA has responded to issues of national importance with new ideas and technology that have changed the way wars are fought and even changed the way we live. Since the very beginning, DARPA has been the place for people with ideas too crazy, too far out and too risky for most research organizations. DARPA is an organization willing to take a risk on an idea long before it is proven.”

Swenson said he objected to the DARPA request because “it’s a big hassle and a lot of extra risk” to repeatedly helicopter his crew off Lehua, where they were monitoring the Jan. 6 and 13 aerial applications of the rodenticide diphacinone.

“We told them we’d stay in our tents and not look out, but they weren’t buying it,” Swenson said. “They said they were doing a lot with aircraft, aerial stuff, and we had to be off Lehua at night during that time.”

During the day, Swenson said, “we saw a lot of boat activity. A lot of torpedo chasers were out cruising around.”

The January 2009 undersea warfare training exercise (USWEX), which in previous years has involved the use of sonar, also was under way during that same period, beginning at 4 p.m. Jan. 15 and ending at noon Jan. 18.

The whale deaths, and the fact that many of the beached Ni‘ihau fish had distended swim bladders, has prompted some to question whether sonar or under water explosions may have played a role.

Swenson said that sonar testing and underwater explosions “would correlate with the distended swim bladders.” As for the lanternfish and squid kills, “those are both deep water species, so something happened deep down quickly that nailed a bunch of them.”

In regard to the Ni‘ihau fish kill, Swenson said, “My gut suspicion is something got spilled during Naval exercises up there. They had the Port Royal grounding and sewage spill they [the Navy] weren’t going to tell us about.”

Swenson was referring to a guided missile cruiser that ran aground near the Honolulu International Airport’s reef runway on Feb. 5. The navy discharged about 7,000 gallons of untreated wastewater from the ship without first informing the state Department of Health.

Thierry Work, the federal wildlife biologist who conducted a necropsy on one fish collected from the Ni‘ihau fish kill, said he did not want to add to speculation about the cause. He found “acute inflammation and swelling of the gills,” which he said can be caused by a number of factors, including chemical irritants and natural toxins.

When asked why many of the fish had distended swim bladders, Work replied: “I’m stumped.” That condition occurs when a fish “loses the ability to compensate buoyancy for whatever reason,” he said, and is typically associated with hooking a fish and quickly bringing it up from deeper waters.

However, the Ni‘ihau fish kill involved shallow water reef fish – primarily humuhumu and nenue – and the specimen Work examined showed no sign of being hooked. He said detonating dynamite in the water also could cause the condition, “but then you would think all sorts of fish would be affected, not just triggerfish.”

“Each fish has different swim bladder characteristics, so even if there were many species in an area that was blasted, only a few species would have extended swim bladders,” said Dr. Carl J. Berg, a Kauai research scientist with deep-sea research experience. “Deep water fish and squid come up closer to the surface to feed at night, then go back down into the dark depths during the day, so they could have gotten nailed at night when they were nearer the surface. My guess is by underwater explosions or sonar.”

Work was unaware of the Jan. 20 lanternfish kill at Kalapaki, but said that on Jan. 26 state conservation officers gave him two lanternfish to necropsy after a number of that species washed ashore at Maui’s Puunoa Beach. He has not yet conducted tissue studies on the samples.

Although some have speculated that the rodenticide diphacinone may be the cause of the Ni‘ihau fish and whale deaths, both Swenson and Don Heacock, the state aquatic biologist for Kauai, discounted that possibility.

“There’s no way it [diphacinone] could get into a baby whale,” Heacock said. “They’re only drinking milk and the mamas don’t feed here.”

Tissue tests done on opihi and 18 live fish caught off Lehua following the rodenticide application showed no sign of diphacinone, Swenson said. Results are still pending for aama crab and seawater.

Monitoring work done on Lehua found “no detectable movement” of the pellets on land, Swenson said.

Swenson said the Health Department is testing fish from the Ni‘ihau kill for diphacinone and pesticides, but has not yet released the results.

Updated 4:54 pm with quote from Carl J. Berg.

Source: http://www.thehawaiiindependent.com/hawaii/niihau/2009/03/17/classified-military-operations-coincided-with-fish-kill/

Air Force Sergeant killed in motorcycle crash

Post Date February 25, 2009

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Author Laurel Mei-Singh

Category Accidents

H-1 Motorcycle Crash Victim Identified

Examiner Says Air Force Sgt. Died Of Multiple Trauma Injuries

POSTED: 5:56 pm HST February 24, 2009
UPDATED: 6:11 pm HST February 24, 2009

HONOLULU — The man killed in Sunday’s deadly motorcycle crash on the H-1 Freeway has been identified as a sergeant in the U.S. Air Force.

The medical examiner determined Willie Davis, 35, of Kapolei, died from multiple traumatic injuries.

Davis was killed after colliding into a guardrail at high speed near Seventh Avenue, police said.

The motorcycle ended up a half mile away on the Kapiolani Boulevard off-ramp.

HPD closed the freeway for 5.5 hours on Sunday while they conducted their investigation and searched the area for evidence.

Stranded Navy ship severely damaged coral reef

Post Date February 20, 2009

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Author Laurel Mei-Singh

Category Accidents, Environmental Impacts, Ke Awalau o Pu'uloa / Pearl Harbor

The two Navy photos below show the damage to the USS Port Royal. In the first photo, the sonar dome is ripped open and scrapes mar the new high tech anti-fouling blue paint. The bottom photo shows where propeller blades were sheared off.

In the following photograph by Floyd Morris for the Honolulu Star Bulletin, you can see how close the stranded ship was to recreational and subsistence fishing areas. The Navy now admits to having dumped 7000 gallons, not 5000 gallons as previously reported, of raw sewage without notifying public health officials.

www.starbulletin.com

Extensive coral reef damage revealed in ship’s grounding

The Navy had previously said that the site consisted only of sand and rocks

By Gregg K. Kakesako

POSTED: 01:30 a.m. HST, Feb 20, 2009

State and Navy divers have determined that the $1 billion warship USS Port Royal damaged a coral reef when it ran aground half a mile south of the Honolulu Airport’s reef runway earlier this month.

“Although initial reports indicated that the ship had grounded on a rock and sand bottom, our subsequent surveys have shown that there is in fact coral reef,” said Department of Land and Natural Resources Director Laura Thielen in a joint news release with the Navy. “Divers from our Division of Aquatic Resources are now working in cooperation with counterparts from the Navy to ensure that no further damage occurs, and to map the full extent of the grounding scar.”

The Navy also faces the possibility of hefty fines since coral is protected by state and federal laws. Deborah Ward, DLNR spokeswoman, said it is “premature” to talk about fines until the joint state-Navy investigation is completed and reviewed by state attorneys. Last year, DLNR fined a Maui tour boat company $550,000 for damaging coral in the waters of Molokini islet.

In addition, the Navy says now that 7,000 – not 5,000 – gallons of waste water were dumped while the ship was aground Feb. 5-9 to prevent it from backing up and endangering the crew.

State and Navy divers will spend another week moving debris from the grounding area to deeper water and reattaching large pieces of coral.

The Navy had originally failed to tell the state and public about the waste-water discharge, even though two Health Department officials attended a meeting with Navy officials at Pearl Harbor on Feb. 8.

The Navy said the waste water consisted mostly of sea water, used to flush waste.

“Keep in mind that while the ship was aground for those 78 hours, the Navy was concerned foremost about the safety of the crew, freeing the ship and minimizing damage to the environment,” said Rear Adm. Joseph Walsh, deputy commander of the Pacific Fleet. “We regret this unintentional grounding, and we are glad that we were able to refloat the ship without injury to the crew while minimizing environmental harm.”

The dumping took place on Feb. 6 after a Navy barge was unable to transfer the waste water and fuel from the 9,600-ton guided-missile cruiser because of rough seas. The Navy said the Port Royal’s crew made every effort to mitigate the effects, including shutting off water to showers and sinks to minimize the released amounts.

The Port Royal was taken to Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard’s dry dock on Wednesday for repairs. When the grounding occurred, the vessel had begun sea trials after spending six months in the shipyard undergoing $18 million of repairs, maintenance work and repainting.

Although there has been no official damage report or estimate on the cost to repair the cruiser, Walsh has said that water leaked into the sonar dome located below the bow. Also, several of the 10 propeller blades were sheared off.

Photos released by the Navy show scrapes along the hull and at least five blades missing.

Initially, the Navy insisted the area where the ship ran aground in 20 feet of water consisted mainly of rocks and sand.

State and Navy divers from Pearl Harbor’s Mobile Diving and Salvage Unit 1 have been in the water since Feb. 12, tagging and replacing broken coral blocks.

The divers concentrated this week on mapping and photographing the extent of the damage to identify coral colonies that might be reattached to the reef using quick-setting cement.

Thielen said the department developed undersea survey and mapping techniques from two groundings in 2005: the Cape Flattery at Barbers Point and the Casitas at Pearl and Hermes reef in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.

Navy and state divers also are noting the locations of detached reef blocks or other debris that might roll in the surf and cause additional damage to the reef over time.

These are being removed by Navy divers and disposed of at a deep-water site approved by the state.

The removed rocks range from 2 to 5 feet in diameter.

The Navy has not decided the fate of Capt. John Carroll, Port Royal’s commander, or any of the sailors who were on watch on the ship’s bridge at the time of the grounding.

Grounded Navy ship damaged Hawaii coral reef

Post Date February 20, 2009

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Author Laurel Mei-Singh

Category Accidents, Environmental Impacts, Ke Awalau o Pu'uloa / Pearl Harbor

HonoluluAdvertiser.com

February 20, 2009

Grounded Navy ship damaged Hawaii coral reef

DLNR can seek fines for harm caused by warship’s grounding

By William Cole
Advertiser Military Writer

The state for the first time yesterday confirmed there was significant damage to coral reef caused by the 3 1/2-day grounding of the guided missile cruiser USS Port Royal this month off Honolulu Airport’s reef runway.

The Navy, meanwhile, released photos of the 9,600-ton warship in drydock showing damage to its propellers, sonar dome and scrape marks on a hull that just months ago had been repainted a bright blue.

The ship ran aground Feb. 5 half a mile off the reef runway, and was freed Feb. 9.

Divers noted detached coral reef colonies, which are being tagged for possible reattachment using quick-setting cement, the state and Navy said in a joint release yesterday.

Some blocks of reef up to 5 feet in diameter that could roll in the surf and cause more damage are being removed by Navy divers and disposed of in deep water.

The largest blocks are being cemented in place to stabilize them and prevent further movement, according to the release.

“Although initial reports indicated that the ship had grounded on a rock and sand bottom, our subsequent surveys have shown that there is, in fact, coral reef,” said Laura H. Thielen, chairwoman of the state Department of Land and Natural Resources.

State divers “are now working in cooperation with counterparts from the Navy to ensure that no further damage occurs, and to map the full extent of the grounding scar,” Thielen said in the release.

The state divers have been in the water since Feb. 12, conducting an underwater survey of the grounding site. DLNR spokeswoman Deborah Ward yesterday said she couldn’t provide an estimate of the size of the coral reef area damaged.

Robert Harris, director of the Sierra Club Hawai’i Chapter, said the concern is that some coral species take decades, if not centuries, to grow back fully.

“We have a fair amount of reef around the island, but the corals have been under increasing stress due to increasing temperature of the water and other manmade effects,” Harris said. “So there’s been increasing concern about what’s going to happen to reefs.”

The DLNR can seek fines for coral damage; in January 2008 the department fined a Maui tour boat company $550,000 for damaging coral in the waters of Molokini Islet. It was unclear yesterday whether fines would be pursued against the Navy.

Crew kept safe

Rear Adm. Joseph A. Walsh, deputy commander of U.S. Pacific Fleet, said in the release that the Navy regrets the grounding, but is glad the ship was able to be refloated without injury to the crew.

“Keep in mind that while the ship was aground for those 78 hours, the Navy was concerned foremost about the safety of the crew, freeing the ship and minimizing damage to the environment,” Walsh said.

There was no oil leakage. Walsh said at a press conference following the grounding that the marine environment “has been described to me as a sand rock bottom … but it has the potential to sustain life is how it was described to me.”

The 567-foot Port Royal ran aground about 8:30 p.m. on Feb. 5 on its first day of sea trials after being in a Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard drydock for about three months for $18 million in maintenance.

The Navy was unsuccessful in three attempts to pull the $1 billion warship off the reef in 17 to 22 feet of water, and its very public predicament just half a mile off the reef runway garnered the Navy a lot of unwanted public attention.

After removing 600 tons of weight – including 500 tons of seawater ballast and 40 tons’ worth of anchors and anchor chains – the Navy lightened the ship enough to pull it backward from its perch around 2:40 a.m. on Feb. 9.

The incident heavily damaged the bow-mounted sonar housing and struts, shafts and propellers. Propeller blades were sheared off. The salvage ship Salvor, the Motor Vessel Dove and seven Navy and commercial tugboats were used to pull the Port Royal free.

The ship’s commander, Capt. John Carroll, was temporarily relieved of his duties, pending the investigation outcome. The extent of repairs that are needed and bill for the work are still being determined, the Navy said.

As many as 42 sailors a day from the Navy’s Mobile Diving and Salvage Unit One have been assisting the state effort, moving and reattaching large pieces of coral.

The Navy yesterday said 7,000 gallons of wastewater were released by Port Royal while it was aground to prevent the sewage from backing up into the ship. The state Health Department previously complained the Navy did not officially notify it of the release, which the state agency initially believed was 5,000 gallons.

Capt. W. Scott Gureck, a spokesman for U.S. Pacific Fleet, said there was a miscommunication during a time of hectic activity.

“This (the grounding) was an emergency situation where people could have died,” he said. “The focus was on keeping people alive and keeping a ship from breaking up and causing incredible environmental harm.”

Stuck Navy ship dumped 5000 gallons of raw sewage, but didn't report it

Post Date February 11, 2009

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Author Laurel Mei-Singh

Category Accidents, Environmental Impacts, Ke Awalau o Pu'uloa / Pearl Harbor

The USS Port Royal failed to disclose to State regulators that it dumped 5000 gallons of untreated sewage into the waters off the Honolulu Airport. Many people fish, swim and paddle canoes in those very waters. Yummmm… The Honolulu Advertiser article captured the absurdity of the incident:

The omission was one more bit of embarrassment heaped onto the 3 1/2-day spectacle of a 9,600-ton warship capable of shooting down ballistic missiles in space sitting helplessly aground in 17 to 22 feet of water just off Honolulu International Airport’s reef runway.

Here’s the full article:

Stuck Navy ship failed to report sewage release near Hawaii shore

5,000 gallons of raw wastewater went into sea during Port Royal grounding

By William Cole
Advertiser Military Writer

The Navy is pointing to a breakdown in communication in failing to report to state officials a 5,000-gallon release of raw sewage Saturday night by the grounded cruiser Port Royal, which was refloated early Monday.

The state Department of Health revealed the information yesterday. The Navy had not mentioned the sewage release at news conferences discussing the incident.

“The Navy did its best to keep all the responding organizations informed amid rapidly changing circumstances,” said Capt. W. Scott Gureck, a spokesman for U.S. Pacific Fleet. “Any breakdown in communication under these circumstances was unintentional.”

The omission was one more bit of embarrassment heaped onto the 3 1/2-day spectacle of a 9,600-ton warship capable of shooting down ballistic missiles in space sitting helplessly aground in 17 to 22 feet of water just off Honolulu International Airport’s reef runway.

The Navy said it recovered one of two bow anchors and chains yesterday, dropped by the Port Royal to help free its bow from the rocky and sandy bottom.

Officials said the centerline and starboard anchors and their chains weigh 40 tons. Subject to weather conditions, the Navy said it plans to retrieve the remaining anchor and chain today using the salvage vessel Salvor.

The Clean Water Branch of the state Department of Health said it was notified on Monday by the state Office of Hazard Evaluation and Emergency Response of the raw sewage discharge between late evening Saturday and 10 a.m. Sunday.

The 567-foot Pearl Harbor cruiser ran aground about 8:30 p.m. Thursday a half-mile from shore.

“No official notification (of the sewage discharge) was given to the Department of Health, even though two DOH staff persons attended a meeting at 2 p.m. Feb. 8, 2009 in Building 150 (at the) Pearl Harbor Naval Base,” the Health Department said in a release.

The Health Department said it confirmed the sewage release yesterday morning.

Gureck said had the Navy not discharged the wastewater, it would have backed up onto the ship. About 130 of the 324 sailors had been off-loaded by the time the ship was refloated, officials said.

“The reason (the sewage) was released was to protect the health and welfare of the crew,” Gureck said, adding the release was done at ebb tide to carry it away from recreational waters.

Officials said Navy ships can store about a day’s wastewater, which is released when a ship is at sea.

There remained questions about the Health Department’s jurisdiction regarding a Navy vessel, but Health Department spokeswoman Janice Okubo said the Navy should have notified the state.

The release of 1,000 gallons or more sewage by a permit holder is considered a significant amount, and the public is required to be notified, Okubo said.

The Health Department also said it was notified Monday of the bypass of 12,700 gallons of treated but not ultravioletly disinfected effluent from the Navy’s Fort Kamehameha wastewater treatment plant. The release occurred near the Pearl Harbor channel.

In response, the Health Department is advising the public to stay out of waters fronting the reef runway from Ke’ehi Channel to the Pearl Harbor channel.

A meeting of state and federal agencies, including the state Department of Land and Natural Resources, the Navy, Fish and Wildlife Service and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, was held yesterday to plan for an investigation of the impact of the grounding on the marine environment.

The Port Royal is expected to head to drydock by the end of the week for repairs.

Grounded ship refloated on 8th anniversary of Ehime Maru collision

Post Date February 10, 2009

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Author Laurel Mei-Singh

Category Accidents

www.starbulletin.com

Captain of grounded warship relieved of duty

The USS Port Royal ran aground last week but has been refloated and is back at Pearl

By Gregg K. Kakesako

POSTED: 01:30 a.m. HST, Feb 10, 2009

The key to freeing the 9,600-ton guided-missile cruiser USS Port Royal from a rocky and sandy shoal near the Honolulu Airport reef runway was removing more than 600 tons of sea water, anchors, anchor chains, sailors and equipment.

USS PORT ROYAL
Builder: Ingalls Shipbuilding

Cost: $1 billion

Propulsion: 4 gas turbine engines

Length: 567 feet

Beam: 55 feet

Displacement: 9,600 tons

Speed: 30-plus knots

Crew: 24 officers, 340 enlisted

Armament: Standard missile, vertical launch missile, Tomahawk cruise missile, six MK-46 torpedoes, two MK 45 5-inch/.54-caliber guns, two Phalanx close-in-weapons systems

Aircraft: Two SH-60 Seahawk helicopters

Source: U.S. Navy

Rear Adm. Joe Walsh, deputy commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, told reporters yesterday that after lightening the load, the salvage ship USNS Salvor and the Motor Vessel Dove were able at 2:40 a.m. yesterday to pull the $1 billion warship off the shoal where it had been lodged since Thursday night.

Walsh said lines from the Salvor and the Dove were attached to the Port Royal’s stern.

Four Navy and three civilian tugboats were aligned on either side of the 567-foot cruiser to assist in the tow, which was timed to take advantage of yesterday morning’s high tide.

Walsh said it took about 40 minutes to free the 15-year-old cruiser, which was stuck in about 22 feet of water.

Initial assessment disclosed that a rubber dome that houses the sonar under the bow of the Port Royal may have been cracked.

Sensors indicate that water entered the dome, Walsh said. The tips of the Port Royal’s two propellers also were sheared off.

Walsh said the cruiser was “structurally sound” and that damage was limited to the hull. None of the sophisticated Aegis combat radar and missile systems were affected, he said.

Speaking in front of the Port Royal at Pearl Harbor, Walsh said the cruiser will be moved to the shipyard by the end of week and placed in dry dock. It had left dry dock on Jan. 6 and spent another month in the shipyard to complete an $18 million renovation and repainting job. There was no evidence of any major damage to the port side of the ship above the waterline.

Walsh was not able to estimate the cost to repair the Port Royal or how long an investigation into the grounding would take. The ship had just finished its first day of sea trials and was offloading sailors, contractors and civilian shipyard personnel to a small boat when it ran aground.

Yesterday, Rear Adm. Dixon R. Smith, commander of Naval Surface Group Middle Pacific, temporarily relieved Capt. John Carroll as the Port Royal’s commanding officer pending the results of the investigation to determine the cause of the ship’s grounding.

Smith made a special trip to the cruiser Friday and spent the weekend on the Port Royal directing the operations.

Carroll assumed command of the Port Royal in October.

Capt. John T. Lauer III, who is assigned to the staff of Naval Surface Group Middle Pacific, has been temporarily assigned as the ship’s commanding officer.

Walsh said he was “very, very satisfied” with how the operation had been conducted and that the Navy started with attempts Friday to pull the Port Royal using just two harbor tugs. Two larger ships with greater towing capacity were later brought in.

Eventually, success was achieved after half of the 320 crew members and more than 500 tons of sea water used as ballast and another 40 tons comprising two anchors, anchor chains and other equipment were taken off the cruiser.

Walsh said the Navy was to return to the site, about a half-mile south of Honolulu Airport, to retrieve the anchors and anchor chains and then determine whether damage was caused to the ocean bottom.

Joining in the site assessment will be representatives from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and state Health and Land departments.

Yesterday an aerial survey of the grounding site showed a sheen of marine diesel fuel about 1.5 miles long and 100 yards wide. However, “it is not clear if the fuel is from the Port Royal or one of the nine other vessels used in the response,” Walsh said.

“There is no threat to the coastline or marine life from the sheen.”

He said the oil spill recovery vessel Clean Islands will remain next to the sheen until it burns away.

The refloating of the Port Royal occurred on the eighth anniversary of the collision of the Ehime Maru with the nuclear submarine USS Greeneville. On Feb. 9, 2001, the Greeneville performed an emergency surfacing movement 10 miles south of Diamond Head and collided with the Japanese training vessel. The Ehime Maru sank within minutes. Nine of its crew members, including four high school students, were killed.

The key to freeing the 9,600-ton guided-missile cruiser USS Port Royal from a rocky and sandy shoal near the Honolulu Airport reef runway was removing more than 600 tons of sea water, anchors, anchor chains, sailors and equipment.

USS PORT ROYAL
Builder: Ingalls Shipbuilding

Cost: $1 billion

Propulsion: 4 gas turbine engines

Length: 567 feet

Beam: 55 feet

Displacement: 9,600 tons

Speed: 30-plus knots

Crew: 24 officers, 340 enlisted

Armament: Standard missile, vertical launch missile, Tomahawk cruise missile, six MK-46 torpedoes, two MK 45 5-inch/.54-caliber guns, two Phalanx close-in-weapons systems

Aircraft: Two SH-60 Seahawk helicopters

Source: U.S. Navy

Rear Adm. Joe Walsh, deputy commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, told reporters yesterday that after lightening the load, the salvage ship USNS Salvor and the Motor Vessel Dove were able at 2:40 a.m. yesterday to pull the $1 billion warship off the shoal where it had been lodged since Thursday night.

Walsh said lines from the Salvor and the Dove were attached to the Port Royal’s stern.

Four Navy and three civilian tugboats were aligned on either side of the 567-foot cruiser to assist in the tow, which was timed to take advantage of yesterday morning’s high tide.

Walsh said it took about 40 minutes to free the 15-year-old cruiser, which was stuck in about 22 feet of water.

Initial assessment disclosed that a rubber dome that houses the sonar under the bow of the Port Royal may have been cracked.

Sensors indicate that water entered the dome, Walsh said. The tips of the Port Royal’s two propellers also were sheared off.

Walsh said the cruiser was “structurally sound” and that damage was limited to the hull. None of the sophisticated Aegis combat radar and missile systems were affected, he said.

[Preview] Navy Warship Finally Freed
[Preview]

An investigation is underway into what caused a billion dollar ship to run aground in Hawaiian waters.

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