Admiral says Pearl Harbor
a logical base for carrier
U.S. Pacific Fleet Adm. Walter Doran has told local business leaders that Pearl Harbor is the most logical place in the Pacific to base an aircraft carrier and its accompanying air wing.
But the head of the Pacific Fleet, in a private meeting with a delegation from the Chamber of Commerce of Hawaii, noted that there are still a lot of issues that need to be resolved, including jet noise pollution at Kalaeloa, a site being considered for the air wing, said Bill Paty, who attended the meeting.
Kalaeloa was once the home of Navy helicopter, A4 Skyhawk, F4 Phantom and F18 Hornet jet fighter and P3 Orion subhunter squadrons before it went out of business in 1999 as the Barbers Point Naval Air Station.
U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye and Gov. Linda Lingle see the base's entire 3,700 acres as a pivotal point in supporting relocation of a nuclear aircraft carrier strike group from the West Coast to Pearl Harbor. Other suggestions are the Pacific Missile Range at Kauai's Barking Sands and the Marine Corps Base at Kaneohe, which housed jet fighters until 1994.
Doran told the business delegation that Pearl Harbor has the edge over Guam because of the high cost of developing facilities there.
"The admiral left us with a positive impression," Paty said, "that if all things being equal, we have a lot more going for us than Guam."
Asked about Doran's comments, Jon Yoshishige, his spokesman, said: "The Navy and Pacific Fleet are always examining where our forces are home-ported and distributed. No decision has been made to locate a carrier strike group in Hawaii."
The Navy last fall started a yearlong $1.8 million internal study on what additional improvements would be needed to home-port a carrier with 3,000 sailors and an air wing with additional 9,000 sailors.
One of the factors is the noise caused by F18 Super Hornet combat jet fighters and other support aircraft. The Federal Aviation Administration and the state Department of Transportation are also against using Kalaeloa as a practice landing field for C-17 cargo jet planes because it could cause problems for commercial jets operating at nearby Honolulu Airport.
Yoshishige said the Navy has not talked to the FAA about basing an air wing at Kalaeloa.
Paty said Doran referred to the problems the Atlantic Fleet ran into when it decided to build a practice carrier landing field in North Carolina because the one closest to its major base -- Oceana Naval Air Station in Virginia -- did not permit realistic carrier landing training operations because of residential development around Oceana.
Paty said the Chamber of Commerce has decided to stay out of the carrier strike force debate until the Navy selects a site. "We have taken the position that this is a military security decision," Paty said. "Once the Navy makes up its mind, and if this is the place the Navy wants, we would be supportive."
In the debate leading up to the 1999 Pentagon decision to keep the majority of the six Pacific Fleet carriers on the West Coast, the chamber as well as island politicians, like then-Gov. Ben Cayetano, lobbied hard. In pushing the Navy to base a carrier in Hawaii, state legislators and business leaders pointed out that it would create 4,200 new jobs and pump $375 million a year into the local economy. Cayetano even offered the Navy the use of Kalaeloa.
The Navy now splits its 12 carriers evenly between the Pacific and the Atlantic. Three of the Pacific Fleet carriers are at San Diego, two in Puget Sound in Washington and one in Japan. Six carriers are assigned to the East Coast.
The last time a carrier was based at Pearl Harbor was during World War II.