Much attention has been given the USS Enterprise (CVN 65) recently regarding its retirement from active service after a 51-year career, and for good reason.
Do we in the Pacific Northwest realize how closely connected we are to this ship?
The Enterprise was the first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. Meant to be the first of a class of six, she proved far too expensive to build the others. The ship carries the most reactors ever put to sea, eight in total — two per screw, and two more than other classes.
The Enterprise was commissioned in November 1961. By October 1962, it was participating in the 13-day Cuban missile crisis naval blockade ordered by President Kennedy. Since then, she has served in every major international event.
The Enterprise was designed to last 25 years, but went through several life-extending upgrades. Two of those upgrades were right here at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard. In 1973, the ship was altered and refitted to support the new F-14A Tomcat and then again in January 1979 for a 30-month comprehensive overhaul.
Billions of dollars were spent in maintenance and upgrades since her launch. In 2010, before her final combat deployment, the Navy spent over $600 million in upkeep.
Following her last deployment to the Persian Gulf, the Enterprise was officially deactivated on Dec. 1, 2012, and will remain at Naval Station Norfolk for several months to off-load equipment.
From there, the ship will be docked at Huntington Ingalls Industries, Newport News Shipyard where its nuclear fuel will be removed.
The spent fuel will be shipped to the Naval Reactors Facility at the Idaho National Laboratory by specially designed railcars where it will be examined to aid with future reactor design research. The fuel will be disposed of at a later date, says Navy Spokesman Mike Maus.
The Enterprise will then have a seriously long tow from Newport News, Va. — around Cape Horn — to the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and Intermediate Maintenance Facility in Bremerton. The Panama Canal is too small for U.S. nuclear carriers.
The Navy’s proposed action at this time at PSNS & IMF is to have all eight reactor compartments removed, prepared and packaged for disposal and then transported (via barge to the Port of Richland and then by land) to Trench 94 for disposal at Hanford. The Navy has used Trench 94 to bury radioactive reactors from 114 other decommissioned nuclear-powered vessels, mostly submarines.
The remnant hull sections will be recycled. The entire process at PSNS is predicted to take anywhere from four to eight years and should help ensure a steady employment environment.
Once the reactors are removed, the Enterprise will officially be decommissioned.
“Inactivating the ship at HII-Newport News and disposing of it at PSNS&IMF is the most cost effective way to complete the inactivation and recycling. Some of the inactivation processes require specialized defueling equipment which is only available at HII NN,” according to the Navy website.
“Additionally, only PSNS & IMF has the specialized equipment and expertise to package the reactor compartments for disposal and recycle the rest of the ship.”
Let’s pray that Hanford’s ongoing problems will be closer to being solved by the time the Enterprise’s nuclear waste reaches it.
The Energy Department has halted construction at the Hanford vitriol plant earlier this year because of an investigation into Bechtel’s design and construction flaws. The plant is being built to treat an estimated 56 million gallons of high level radioactive waste gathered over more than 50 years.
— Contact columnist Marylin Olds at marylin.olds@gmail.com.
