The arrival of the USS Independence at the
Port of Brownsville has been delayed by fears on the part of environmental
regulators that some of the preparations for the ship’s departure from the
Puget Sound Naval Shipyard were polluting the water there.
According to a Jan. 10 article from the
“Kitsap Sun,” the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Washington State
Department of Ecology were concerned that the scraping of the ship’s hull by
Navy divers — necessary to limit the spread of invasive species during the
16,000-mile trip to Texas — was putting toxic amounts of copper-based paint
into the water and harming marine life.
On Jan. 6, divers began the weeks-long
process of scraping a three-inch-deep layer of barnacles and other marine
growth from the hull, according to the article. International Shipbreaking
Ltd., part of the EMR Group, last August won the Navy contract to dismantle the
mothballed “supercarrier,” commissioned in 1959 and decommissioned in 1998.
This will be the company’s third carrier.
International Shipbreaking took delivery of the decommissioned USS
Constellation in January 2015 and the retired USS Ranger in July 2015.
The Independence originally was scheduled to
leave the Navy facility near Bremerton, Wash., under tow roughly two months ago
and arrive in Brownsville in late February or mid-March. The original estimate
was that the trip would take 4 1/2 months using an ocean-going tugboat.
Robert Berry, International Shipbreaking vice
president, said the latest estimate is closer to two months since the company
has elected to bring in an actual towing ship, which is faster than a tug. The
issue that was preventing the vessel from leaving has been resolved, meanwhile,
and the Independence should be ready to embark on its final journey as soon as
the tow vessel arrives, he said.
“We don’t know exactly when,” Berry said.
“Probably somewhere around the middle of February.”
The trip will take the Independence south
from Puget Sound to the tip of South America, where it will navigate the Strait
of Magellan before heading north up the eastern coast of South America to the
Caribbean Sea, the Gulf of Mexico and finally the Brownsville Ship Channel.
Berry said it should be relatively smooth sailing once the vessels get far
enough south.
“It’s winter time here (in Bremerton), so
it’ll be a little rough getting out of here, but down south its summertime,” he
said. “It’s never really good weather down there, but it’s much better weather
than normal.”
Source:
Brownsville
Herald. 29 January 2017
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