Pearl Harbor
won't get
aircraft carrier
The Navy says construction
By Gregg K. Kakesako
would be too expensive
Star-BulletinThe Navy has ruled out Pearl Harbor as the future home of one of its nuclear-powered Nimitz-class aircraft carriers because it would be too expensive to build facilities to support the surface vessel and its accompanying air wing.
Instead, the Navy is proposing that three nuclear carriers be berthed at San Diego, two in the Pacific Northwest, and one conventionally powered carrier in Japan.
The 97,000-ton Nimitz-class carriers are the largest warships in the world. Eight are now operational and one is under construction.
The Navy yesterday approved a draft environmental impact study that looked at four possible carrier home ports, including Pearl Harbor.
Jon Yoshishige, Pacific Fleet spokesman, said "extensive construction would be needed to prepare adequate infrastructure, maintenance and support facilities for a Nimitz-class carrier."
He also said that any carrier based at Pearl Harbor would have to travel back to the West Coast "for each training exercise and pre-deployment preparation."
The final environmental impact statement will be released next year following public review and comment. A public hearing will be held here Sept. 24.
Under consideration as potential home ports for five nuclear carriers were Washington state's Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and Everett Naval Station; San Diego Naval Station; and Pearl Harbor Naval Station.
The Navy now proposes to berth two more nuclear carriers at North Island Naval Station in San Diego, bringing the total in the city to three.
The USS John Stennis is now completing its first six-month deployment and will make San Diego its home port when it reaches the California port Aug. 26.
The USS Nimitz is expected to be sent to San Diego when it completes a 33-month overhaul. Also expected to be home-ported in San Diego is the USS Ronald Reagan, now being built.
Washington state could continue to home-port two carriers at Everett and the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard at Bremerton.
The USS Carl Vinson is now berthed at Bremerton, while the USS Abraham Lincoln is stationed at Everett.
In pushing the Navy to base a carrier in Hawaii, state legislators pointed out that it would create 4,200 new jobs and pump $375 million a year into the local economy.
But the high cost of building facilities to support a nuclear carrier and an accompanying air wing of nearly 3,000 pilots and sailors were factors against sending one to Hawaii.
Stanley Hong, president of the Chamber Commerce of Hawaii, said he was "disappointed" by the Navy's decision. "Strategically, Hawaii is still the best forward-located area for a carrier task force that could handle anything that might happen in Asia."
But he added that "cost factors are very big considerations."
Hong, though, pointed out that Gov. Ben Cayetano had offered to allow the Navy to use Barbers Point Naval Air Station - which becomes a state property after the Navy shuts it down in July 1999 - for the site of a 3,000-member air wing, a necessary component of any aircraft carrier.
"Another fact is that we have uncluttered air space over Hawaii to train, unlike the California coast," said Hong, who cautioned he hadn't seen the Navy report.
USS John Stennis
visits Pearl HarborThe high-tech nuclear carrier ends
By Gregg K. Kakesako
a far-from-routine first deployment
Star-BulletinOne of America's newest nuclear aircraft carriers - the USS John Stennis - made its first port call at Pearl Harbor yesterday as it nears completion of a deployment that took it almost around the world.
The 97,000-ton warship left Norfolk, Va., six months ago on what its crew of 5,500 men and women thought would be a routine maiden overseas deployment.
But on Feb. 26, as tensions with Iraq mounted, the Stennis, with its complement of 80 jet fighters, was diverted to the Persian Gulf to relieve the aircraft carrier USS George Washington and be part of a two-carrier retaliation force.
"We ran around-the-clock flight operations," Seaman Vaafuti Togiailua, 24, recalled.
"It was hot there," he said moments after the Stennis tied up at Pearl Harbor. "Up on the flight deck, it was anywhere from 120 to 130 degrees, and the humidity was over 100 percent."
Cmdr. Norman Ho, a 1966 St. Louis High School graduate, said the hardest part during the six-month deployment was logistics and getting parts to keep the 10 squadrons of Air Wing 7 flying.
He marveled at the Stennis' satellite phone communications and e-mail capabilities. "This state-of-the-art communications is amazing," said Ho, the air wing maintenance officer.
