Ex-warship Kitty Hawk could produce ‘an odor’ as it is cleaned in WA state, Navy says
The former USS Kitty Hawk arrived at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard on Tuesday, and the Navy is warning people the decommissioned aircraft carrier could bring “an odor.”
The Kitty Hawk made pulled into a dry dock at the shipyard so decaying marine growth on its hull could be scraped off. This is the first time a ship has been secured at the dry dock since 2009.
“While the Navy is taking actions to reduce any impacts, the odor may be detectable in surrounding communities beyond the installations fence line,” a spokesperson for the shipyard said in a statement.
The Navy estimates work on the ship could take about 2½ months. The Kitty Hawk has to be cleaned of kelp, barnacles and other marine growth before it is transported to a dismantling yard to avoid the spread of any invasive species, the shipyard said in a statement.
The ship is being cleaned in the dry dock because the Navy was sued after scraping the hull of the former USS Independence while in the water at Sinclair Inlet. The Suquamish Tribe and state’s Attorney General’s Office brought the lawsuit and argued the Navy violated the Clean Water Act by letting copper and zinc fall into Puget Sound.
In March 2020, a settlement agreement was reached which bars the Navy from scraping the hulls of any carriers in the sound.
The Kitty Hawk was decommissioned in 2009 after 48 years. It was the second of three aircraft carriers named for Kitty Hawk, North Carolina — the site of the Wright Brothers’ first powered airplane flight. It was the first of the three to be commissioned and the last to be decommissioned.
For the past 12 years, the ship has been berthed in Sinclair Inlet at the Navy’s Inactive Ship Maintenance Facility in Bremerton. The Navy has not announced where the Kitty Hawk will be dismantled.
This story was originally published March 12, 2021 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Ex-warship Kitty Hawk could produce ‘an odor’ as it is cleaned in WA state, Navy says."
