Group items tagged

Two U.S. Navy vessels - a nuclear-powered submarine and an amphibious ship - collided before dawn Friday in the mouth of the Persian Gulf, one of the world's most important sea passages for oil supplies. There was no damage to the sub's nuclear propulsion system and no disruption to shipping in the strategic Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world's oil passes, said Navy spokesman Lt. Nate Christensen, with the Bahrain-based 5th Fleet. Still, the unusual collision between members of the same navy sparked a sudden rise in oil prices - which had been declining on the day - even though the strait remained open.

Congressman John Tanner uses the U.S. Navy as an example of how nuclear energy can help wean America from dependence on foreign oil. "Nuclear energy is our most viable source of alternative energy to our over-dependence on foreign oil that we have," said the Union City native and Navy veteran in a recent interview. "It is clean and it is renewable. The only problem with it is what to do with the waste. If we can get that worked out with the Yucca, Nev., situation, I think the U.S. Navy has proved the worth of nuclear energy." Yucca Mountain is the proposed site for a nuclear waste repository. Recently, Tanner and an eight-member House delegation were in Europe to participate in ceremonies commemorating the 60th anniversary of North American Treaty Organization, a mutual defense league comprised of 28 nations.

Two-thirds of the Navy's new Virginia-class submarines initially will be based at Pearl Harbor, making Hawai'i the main hub for the advanced attack submarines, Navy officials said yesterday. Advertisement The Navy plans to build 30 of the nuclear submarines, which cost up to $2.5 billion apiece, carry torpedoes and missiles, and can drop off commandos close to shore. The Navy isn't releasing the exact number or arrival schedule for subs coming to Pearl Harbor beyond the USS Hawaii, expected in late June, and the USS Texas, scheduled to arrive in late October or early November.

the Department of the Navy (Navy) announces its intent to prepare a Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) to evaluate the potential environmental consequences of the proposed disposal and reuse of the surplus portion of Hunters Point Shipyard, San Francisco, California. DATES AND ADDRESSES: A public scoping meeting will be held on Tuesday, September 23, 2008, from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the Southeast Community Facility, Alex L. Pitcher Community Room, 1800 Oakdale Avenue, San Francisco, California 94124. The purpose of the meeting will be to receive oral and written comments on environmental concerns that should be addressed in the SEIS.

Still dealing with the fallout of being a repository for contaminated sand from Kuwait, Idaho is reportedly slated to be the dumping ground for literal fallout: radioactive remnants from a World War II-era Navy shipyard, according to a San Francisco alternative newsweekly. "Currently, the Navy is proposing to excavate soil from IR-07 and IR-18, including known mercury and methane spots, and ship it to dumps in Idaho and Utah," said the San Francisco Bay Guardian, in a July 16 story.

If you ever wondered how much control our Pentagon exercises over our supposed America Free Press, wonder NO MORE. We see and hear only what our Government wants us to see, and the proof can be found in the cloak of SCECRACY that has been thrown around the MASSIVE COLLISION of the USS Hartford Nuclear Fast Attack Sub with the MONSTER WAR SHIP the USS New Orleans...can hear the Military Crowd now accusing me of YELLOW JOURNALISM as was done when I first reported on this story. Let me be clear...the Collission of these two Naval Vessels is possibly as close as we will ever come to sinking two American Naval Vessels, one of them a nuclear submarine...and all through our Military's own ingnorance and poor troop performance. Well done Nuclear Navy, you must be so proud of the exclusionary zone you have thrown around this almost Chernobyl event...at least now Admiral Skip Bowman can stop his lie of the nuclear Navy never having a serious accident?

Russia may prioritize the development of nuclear-powered attack submarines armed with nuclear-capable cruise missiles in the future, while maintaining its fleet of strategic subs, a senior Navy official said. The Russian Navy maintains a fleet of about 60 submarines, including 10 nuclear-powered strategic submarines, over 30 nuclear-powered attack submarines, diesel-electric submarines and special-purpose subs. "Probably, tactical nuclear weapons [on submarines] will play a key role in the future," Vice Admiral Oleg Burtsev, deputy head of the Navy General Staff, told RIA Novosti. "Their range and precision are gradually increasing."

DOI's Insular Affairs Assistant Secretary, Tony Babauta made available $1 million to support the Prior Service Trust Fund Administration. The PSTFA administers benefit payments to individuals in the Northern Mariana Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, and the Republic of Palau who worked for the U.S. Department of the Navy and the U.S. Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands. The program is designed to provide social security-type benefits to former employees of the TTPI government (or the predecessor-U.S. Navy administration) who were employed for at least five full years prior to 1968, when a TTPI Social Security System was created. The program also provides benefits to survivors of the former employees.

DOI's Insular Affairs Assistant Secretary, Tony Babauta made available $1 million to support the Prior Service Trust Fund Administration. The PSTFA administers benefit payments to individuals in the Northern Mariana Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, and the Republic of Palau who worked for the U.S. Department of the Navy and the U.S. Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands. The program is designed to provide social security-type benefits to former employees of the TTPI government (or the predecessor-U.S. Navy administration) who were employed for at least five full years prior to 1968, when a TTPI Social Security System was created. The program also provides benefits to survivors of the former employees.

The fire safety system on a brand-new Russian nuclear submarine accidentally turned on as the sub was being tested in the Sea of Japan, spewing a gas that suffocated 20 people and sent 21 others to the hospital, officials said Sunday. The Russian Navy said the submarine itself was not damaged in Saturday's accident and returned to its base on Russia's Pacific coast under its own power Sunday. The accident also did not pose any radiation danger, the navy said.

The U.S. Navy has warned that a nuclear submarine may have had radioactive leaks during recent port calls in Japan's south, the country's Foreign Ministry said Saturday. Japan's Foreign Ministry said in a statement that it was informed by the U.S. Navy that a small amount of radiation might have leaked from the nuclear-powered USS Houston as it traveled around the Pacific.

Most new large U.S. Navy amphibious assault ships would be required to be nuclear powered under the National Defense Authorization Act for 2009 which the House of Representatives has passed by a vote of 384 to 23. It now goes to the Senate where many senators are uneasy about the scheme as is the Navy and the shipbuilding industry in the U.S.

For years, the Hunters Point Shipyard Restoration Advisory Board has served as the Bayview-Hunters Point community's main voice in the U.S. Navy's environmental cleanup plans for the toxic former naval station. But the committee is suddenly being disbanded just as the cleanup enters a crucial phase. Used for shipbuilding and submarine maintenance and repair, and the decontamination, storage, and disposal of radioactive and atomic weapons testing materials, the shipyard was added to the Superfund national toxic site cleanup list in 1989. But it is also at the heart of where Mayor Gavin Newsom has partnered with Lennar Corp. on the city's biggest development proposal, involving 10,500 homes and a new stadium for the 49ers. As the Navy prepares to release a series of important studies and reports concerning the cleanup of the dirtiest parcels on the former shipyard, community members were outraged by the Navy's announcement in late May that it is preparing to dissolve the RAB in the next 30 days.

A huge maintenance hangar at former MCAS El Toro remains "radiological restricted" over California Department of Public Health concerns about a Navy radiological survey. The California Department of Public Health (CDPH) has not approved an MCAS El Toro hangar contaminated with Radium-226, despite a July 2002 Navy report recommending unrestricted use.

"Vice Speaker B.J. Cruz submitted several comments to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recommending that no dredging of Apra Harbor take place and that no dumping of material dredged from Apra Harbor be allowed until adequate radiation testing of the harbor takes place. The Vice Speaker issued his comments in response to the Environmental Impact Statement for the Ocean Dredged Materials Disposal Site Offshore of Guam. In his comments to Mr. Allan Ota of the U.S. EPA, the Vice Speaker recommended No Action be taken on the proposed disposal site. "It is common knowledge," Vice Speaker Cruz wrote in a comment dated April 21, "that the U.S. Navy discharged radioactive material into Apra Harbor on more than one occasion. It is imperative, then, that no dredging of the harbor take place until adequate radiation testing independent from that reported by the U.S. Navy has been conducted on proposed dredge sites.""

The Royal Navy is to drop a dangerous type of reactor used in its existing nuclear submarines because it fails to meet modern safety standards, defence ministers have disclosed. A safer type of reactor is expected to be used in the submarines that will replace the Trident fleet, as the existing design shares very similar features to the nuclear reactors involved in the Fukushima Daiichi disaster in Japan. Liam Fox, the defence secretary, told MPs there was a "very clear-cut" case to use the new type of reactor because it has "improved nuclear safety" and would give "a better safety outlook". A heavily censored Ministry of Defence report disclosed earlier this month by the Guardian and Channel 4 News said the current reactors are "potentially vulnerable" to fatal accidents, which could cause "multiple fatalities" among submarine crews.

Hundreds of litres of potentially radioactive liquid leaked into a river after an incident involving a nuclear submarine, it emerged today. The Royal Navy, which quarantined the area, admitted that 280 litres of possibly toxic coolant water escaped from a burst hose after being pumped from HMS Trafalgar. The liquid, which cools a nuclear reactor, is likely to have been contaminated by tritium, an unstable form of hydrogen that glows in the dark and is used to create the luminous glow on watch dials.

New large U.S. Navy amphibious assault ships will be required to be nuclear powered as part of the National Defense Authorization Act for 2009 signed into law by President George W. Bush on Tuesday, October 14. The Senate had originally not included this provision in its version of the act. It had been part of the House version, pushed by Representative Gene Taylor, chairman of the Seapower and Expeditionary Forces Subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee. A major shipyard for building amphibious assault ships, Northrop Grumman's Ship Systems facility, is located in his Mississippi district.

As the US Navy prepares to deal with its radioactive past at the Hunters Point Shipyard (HPS) - inviting folks to submit comments by July 28 on its proposed cleanup plan for Parcel B - community members are struggling to understand the threat and its implications.

The University of Arizona plans to shut down its 51-year-old nuclear reactor by mid-2010, ending a half-century of specialized nuclear research and training at the Tucson school. The writing has been on the wall for the reactor's demise since the late 1990s, said the professor who runs the UA Nuclear Research Lab. That's when falling demand for nuclear engineers led the university to end specialized degree programs that had fed hundreds of engineers into the nuclear Navy and private nuclear industry. The reactor's license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission expires next year, and with a rigorous re-licensing process, the decision was made to shut the reactor down.

The University of Arizona plans to shut down its 51-year-old nuclear reactor by mid-2010, ending a half-century of specialized nuclear research and training at the Tucson school. The writing has been on the wall for the reactor's demise since the late 1990s, said the professor who runs the UA Nuclear Research Lab. That's when falling demand for nuclear engineers led the university to end specialized degree programs that had fed hundreds of engineers into the nuclear Navy and private nuclear industry. The reactor's license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission expires next year, and with a rigorous re-licensing process, the decision was made to shut the reactor down.

Three men were caught with 5 kg of "regulated and prescribed material" Uranium-238 on the city's outskirts Tuesday. They are suspected to have got the radioactive material, also known as depleted uranium, from an imported scrap consignment belonging to a Navi Mumbai company. They were booked under sections of the Atomic Energy Act by the Panvel police. Nuclear experts say that Uranium-238 is a "protected material" with only special and regulated agencies allowed to possess and transport it.

Three men were caught with 5 kg of "regulated and prescribed material" Uranium-238 on the city's outskirts Tuesday. They are suspected to have got the radioactive material, also known as depleted uranium, from an imported scrap consignment belonging to a Navi Mumbai company. They were booked under sections of the Atomic Energy Act by the Panvel police. Nuclear experts say that Uranium-238 is a "protected material" with only special and regulated agencies allowed to possess and transport it.