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thedrifter
10-05-03, 09:03 AM
October 02, 2003

Carrier could move to Pearl

By Gidget Fuentes
Times staff writer


Four years after it said it wasn’t a good idea, the Navy is reconsidering plans to possibly base an aircraft carrier in Hawaii.
Pacific Fleet officials are studying the potential of placing a carrier, along with possibly its strike group and air wing, in the Central Pacific.

The study “actually is a series of several studies looking at different aspects of infrastructure,” said Lt. j.g. Mike Morley, a Pacific Fleet spokesman at Pearl Harbor. “We’re taking a look at where our forces are.” The study is due for completion in a year.

The Navy’s West Coast-based aircraft carriers routinely stop in Hawaii on their way home or to the Persian Gulf or Japan during deployments. Several piers at Pearl Harbor provide room for transiting ships, and larger draft ships including the carriers berth at “Hotel” piers, Morley said.

The latest effort comes four years after a Navy environmental impact study found that a Hawaii homeport wouldn’t provide sufficient support facilities for a carrier’s air wing. It also noted that the longer transit time would be needed for the carrier and its half-dozen or so warships to train together at the Navy’s vast range complex off Southern California.

The placement of the carrier’s air wing remains uncertain. “Right now, the focus primarily is on the ship,” Morley said.

Officials weren’t singling out any one site over others others, and Morley said the Navy “is looking at several options.”

Options are expected to include the former Barbers Point Naval Air Station and Kaneohe Bay Marine Corps Air Facility. The Navy shut down Barbers Point, southwest of Pearl Harbor, in 1999 under the Base Closure and Realignment Commission. At the same time, Kaneohe Bay, the Marine Corps’ air facility northeast of Pearl Harbor, was realigned and is now used jointly by the Marines and the Navy, including P-3 Orion patrol aircraft. Other possible sites could include Hickam Air Force Base, next to Honolulu International Airport.


http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-2264303.php


Sempers,

Roger
:marine: