As a part of the mammoth war game, despite outcries from the environmental community, including the Sierra Club, Earthjustice, the Center for Biological Diversity and Basel Action Network, the US Navy resumed using old war ships for torpedo and bomb target practice and sinking them. On July 22, the last of three ships to be sunk as a part of the RIMPCAC exercises was sent to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. The USS Kilauea, a decommissioned ammunition ship, was sunk by a torpedo from an Australian submarine, in 15,500 feet of water, 63 miles off the coast of Kauai. The USS Niagara Falls and the USS Concord were sunk off the northwest coast of Kauai earlier in the war games.
The EPA gave the US military an exemption from Federal pollution laws that prohibit dumping in the ocean, under the proviso that the military "will better document" toxic waste left on the ships. According to EPA guidelines, the ships had to be sunk in at least 6,000 feet of water and at least 50 miles offshore.
US Navy sinks twice as many ships as recycles them
The U.S. has six approved domestic ship-breaking facilities, but since 2000, the Navy has gotten rid of 109 US military ships by sinking them off the coasts of California, Hawaii and Florida. During that period only 64 ships were recycled in domestic facilities. The Navy claims that only 500 pounds of PCBs were on the ships that were sunk.
Submarine Launched Drone
During the war games, the U.S. Navy will test a submarine-launched unmanned aerial vehicle (drone) and blue-laser underwater communications technology. The Navy will attempt to launch a drone called the "Switchblade," which has previously been used by US Army and US Marine ground troops in Afghanistan. The Navy's version of the "Switchblade" drone is enclosed in a special launch canister and fired from one of the submarine's trash chutes at periscope depth. The canister floats to the surface, opens up, the electric-motor unfolds the folded-wings and the drone launches itself.
"Tiger Balm" Army War Games on Land in Hawaii
Not to be left out as the huge naval war games take place off Hawaii, the U.S. Army is training Singaporean soldiers on Oahu in a military exercise called "Tiger Balm." Using the U.S. Marine's $42 million Infantry Immersion Training facility on Oahu built to simulate a southern Afghanistan village, the joint US-Singaporean task force practices clearing the village of enemy fighters.
The U.S. Army Pacific command plans on 150 multi-lateral military engagements with Pacific and Asian countries in 2012.
U.S. Marines in Hot Water in Hawaii and Japan over Osprey Helicopter
While a battalion of U.S. Marines from Hawaii were sent recently to Okinawa and a smaller detachment sent to Australia, those remaining in Hawaii are in hot water. Increasing administration emphasis on Asia and the Pacific has emboldened the Marines to attempt to increase the number of MV-22-tilt-rotor Osprey, Cobra and Huey attack-utility helicopter training helicopter flights in the Hawaiian Islands
Last week, Hawaiian activists on Molokai forced the Marines to back down from increasing from 112 to 1,383 the number of helicopter flights into the tiny airport that serves the National Park at Kalaupapa and the home of the surviving patients of Hansen's disease.
The
activists also build a "kuahu," or stone alter on July 15 on the site of the
proposed Marine helicopter fuel depot at Hoolehua, next to the Molokai
airport "topside," on the mesa above
Kalaupapa. "It's a statement that we have cultural significance there, that they
cannot disregard what the people have been telling them. We represent people who do not want any
military presence on Molokai," said Molokai resident Lori Buchanan.
On
the island of Oahu, residents around the Marine base in Kaneohe on July 16 at a
Windward Neighborhood meeting, opposed flights of the Osprey from the base
citing safety and noise concerns.
Protests in Japan over the arrival of the Osprey
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