BASE CLOSINGS NOTEBOOK: Shipyard decision cuts both
ways
By Matthew Daly, Associated Press Writer | August 25, 2005
http://www.boston.com/news/local/new_hampshire/articles/2005/08/25/base_closings_notebook_
shipyard_decision_cuts_both_ways?mode=PF
WASHINGTON --They were celebrating in New England but trying to recork the champagne in
Seattle after a federal commission voted against closing Navy bases in Connecticut and Maine.
The vote by the Base Closure and Realignment Commission to keep open Maine's Portsmouth
shipyard means that 1,400 jobs expected to go to a Navy base near Seattle will likely stay put.
Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Wash., tried to put a brave face on the news.
"My view is we have been blessed" in the base-closing process, Dicks said, noting that no major
base in his military-heavy state is slated for closure or significant downsizing.
The shipyard vote Wednesday "was a tough decision, but the commission made it and we have
to live with it," said Dicks, whose district includes the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton,
Wash., where the Portsmouth jobs would have been transferred.
The extra jobs "would have been a nice thing to have," Dicks said, but it was not meant to be.
Dicks, a member of the House Appropriations defense subcommittee, said there's a "real strong
argument that having two strong shipyards on each coast makes good sense. We've had a lot of
good breaks in the last five years (in terms of adding military jobs and equipment), so I'm not
going to second-guess the commission."
In Connecticut, the commission bucked the Pentagon plan and decided to keep open the New
London submarine base in Groton, retaining 8,000 jobs there. Economists had estimated that
closing the base would have threatened an additional 23,000 jobs outside the base.
-----It may not be the Louisiana Purchase, but New Orleans will take it.
A century-old Navy base in New Orleans was saved from closure by the commission, which voted
instead to turn it into a "federal city" housing military and possibly homeland security offices -- if
the state pays the tab to build a new facility.
The Naval Support Activity base, which employs 4,600 civilian and military workers, had been
slated for closure by the Pentagon.
The commission, without objection, instead opted for the new mission -- provided the state can
fund and begin building the new facility by Sept. 30, 2008.
Commissioner James Hill, who pushed the amendment to realign the base, said the deal made
the most sense because it would cost the federal government nothing.
Hill called it "almost the biggest no-brainer out there."
Local officials pledged at least $166 million in state and city bonds to streamline the base.
-----At Fort Knox in Kentucky, even a nationwide round of base closings means money.
Local real estate agents are greeting the post's expected growth with open arms and some 600
planned new houses.
The post is expected to gain an active component and new personnel management staffs that will
increase its population, while losing its long-held tank training school.
Steve Wallace, a Fort Knox-area broker with the Re/Max Executive group, said he's been getting
four or five inquiries a week from civilian and military personnel expecting to be transferred from
elsewhere since the Defense Department recommended the plan in May.
Brokers are anticipating big purchases from service families moving from posts in higher-priced
real estate markets like northern Virginia, said Wallace, an Army veteran who served in Vietnam.
"When they sell, they're just going to be buying a lot bigger houses for less money," Wallace said.
-----While almost everyone else was lobbying to keep their bases open, officials in Concord, Calif.,
were lobbying to close theirs.
They got their wish Wednesday when the base closing commission agreed with the Pentagon's
plan to shutter part of the Naval Weapons Station Seal Beach, on prime real estate about 35
miles northeast of San Francisco.
"We are very pleased and excited," said Concord Mayor Laura Hoffmeister, who is eyeing the
approximately 5,000 acres for potential uses including senior housing or development around a
Bay Area Rapid Transit station.
"We were already planning for this day basically for the last several years," Hoffmeister said,
adding, "Other communities might be further behind on that process if in fact their bases are
closed and they're fighting to keep them open."
Base cuts hit home
The base-closure panel votes to close an Army building in Everett, but
most eyes are on key decisions yet to come.
By Jim Haley
Herald http://heraldnet.com/stories/05/08/25/100loc_base001.cfmWriter
EVERETT - An independent panel charged with trimming the number of military bases in the country voted
Wednesday to close an Army Reserve building in Everett.
The closure of the Major Oswald Reserve Center at 1110 Rainier Ave. will cause nary a tear nor a whimper
among local politicians and the 80 or so soldiers who train there.
More eyes will be on what the federal Base Realignment and Closure Commission does later this week
when it considers Air Force base closings and the proposed elimination of an Air National Guard air-defense
unit, the only group of its kind in the Northwest.
The north Everett reserve center closure will mean few, if any, losses in personnel.
"It's not the unit on the block. It's the building," said Maj. Hillary Luton, reserve spokeswoman at Fort Lawton
in Seattle.
The idea is to close the Everett structure built in the mid-1960s and construct a larger building in the EverettMarysville area for use by Army and other reserve units.
"The building is outdated. The intent is to provide the soldiers with more facilities to allow them to train
properly and to provide a place where they can train with our sister services," Luton said.
"It's not a personnel crunch. It's a relocation," added Lee Barradale, unit administrator for Detachment 1 of
the 671st Engineer Company. The unit deployed to Iraq in 2003 along with a sister group based in Portland,
Ore.
The building is named after Maj. David P. Oswald Jr., who was killed in action during World War II.
What state congressional members and the governor's office are worried about is the potential elimination of
a squadron of F-15 Air National Guard fighters based at Portland International Airport.
The Pentagon proposed moving the 15 fighters to bases in Louisiana and New Jersey, prompting an outcry
from the Oregon and Washington governors' offices and a bipartisan attack from the congressional
delegations of both states.
Last week, U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., said she stood with the governors of both states, saying
removal of the air guard units is against the law without the consent of the states.
"These cuts are illegal, and I hope the (commission) recognizes that the Pentagon's proposal jeopardizes
regional security," Cantwell said.
Lawmakers and Air National Guard officials say moving the fighters - and also refueling tankers from
Portland and Fairchild Air Force Base in Spokane - would make the Northwest vulnerable to attacks such as
those that occurred on the East Coast on Sept. 11, 2001.
While some communities nationwide already have been hit hard by base closures, Washington was spared
major losses of military assets.
Both Naval Station Everett and Whidbey Island Naval Air Station escaped when the Defense Department
released a potential hit list in May. In fact, the Navy since has announced it will shift an entire squadron of
intelligence reconnaissance planes from Spain to Whidbey, and has said the Oak Harbor base will be home
later this decade to the new-generation electronic attack planes.
"At NAS Whidbey, the future is so bright you got to wear shades," said U.S. Rep. Rick Larsen, D-Wash., a
member of the House Armed Services Committee.
Larsen, whose district includes Whidbey Island and Everett, said the base-closing panel's decision
Wednesday not to move 100 maintenance workers from Crane, Ind., to Whidbey won't tarnish the base's
future.
In Everett, "we framed our arguments that the naval station could be a model for what the military might be
in terms of its agility, flexibility, quality of facilities, strategic location and, of course, a deep-water port," said
Pat McClain, Everett's governmental affairs director.
McClain said city and county arguments were based on the Defense Department's criteria, "and we believe
we rightly reflected that this base is of great value to the Navy in the future."
Elsewhere in the Northwest, the panel voted to block a Pentagon plan that would have transferred as many
as 1,400 civilian workers to Puget Sound Naval Shipyard at Bremerton.
Instead, the commission overruled the Pentagon by voting to keep open a Portsmith, Maine, shipyard that
military planners wanted to shut down.
Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Wash., whose district includes the shipyard, called the commission's decision tough but
fair.
The base-closure panel will continue voting this week, and must send its final proposal to President Bush by
Sept. 8. The president can accept the report or order the commission to make changes. Then, if Congress
does not reject the report in its entirety, it becomes law.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
David S. Broder / Syndicated columnist
Protecting Beaver Island from the terrorist threat
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgibin/PrintStory.pl?document_id=2002451099&zsection_id=268883724&slug=broder25&
date=20050825
BEAVER ISLAND, Mich. — The outside world, I'm sorry to say, keeps intruding on this
pastoral paradise, where once again this summer, several of our grandchildren enjoyed
the legacy left by their great-great-grandfather, Uriah Hoffman, when he built his family
cabin here 91 years ago.
Last summer, as I reported at the time, it was the blighted presidential campaign that
marred our tranquility, in the form of a yard-sign war between the Bushies and the
Kerrys. Kerry narrowly prevailed, as he did in the actual November voting on the island
and in Michigan. Much good it did him. Now he's back windsurfing, but with no camera
crews to record his feats.
This summer, it is homeland security that has laid its clammy hand on us. When you step
off the car ferry in St. James, instead of the familiar line of storefronts, what you first see
is an 8-foot-tall steel fence whose sharp-pointed spears bend outward at the top,
completely surrounding the dock area to thwart any intruders.
The fence and its twin in Charlevoix, the port city on the mainland that is the other
terminus of the Beaver Island Boat Company, were built this spring at a cost of $127,000,
divided between the debt-ridden federal government and the dead-broke state of
Michigan.
As Harbormaster Margo Marks explained to me, the Maritime Security Act of 2002,
passed after 9/11, required that any ports served by vessels carrying 150 passengers or
more must be secured against trespassers or terrorists by mid-2005. "It was either hire
security guards 24/7," she said, "or put up the fence."
Now, Beaver Island, with a year-round population of about 500, may seem an unlikely
target. But who knows? The terrorists could have the Whisky Point Lighthouse on their
list of iconic structures, right after the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
The new protective measures have been handled with good grace. After the London
bombings, passengers on the two-hour voyage between Charlevoix and Beaver Island had
their packages examined as they boarded the Emerald Isle. But the dockworkers were
efficient and pleasant, the surveillance cameras unobtrusive, and no one has complained.
This, despite the island's very different tradition when it comes to law enforcement. Time
was, when a lawman was aboard the ferry from Charlevoix, the captain would give an
extra toot on the whistle as he entered the harbor here. Any folks who — for whatever
reason — were reluctant to be interviewed by the law would jump into their boats and
spend a little time on one of the neighboring islands until the coast was clear.
But now we have this big fence and, often, a deputy sheriff watching people board the
ship. And for what? When a crisis came on Sunday, Aug. 14, the new security measures
were unable to cope with it. The drawbridge in downtown Charlevoix carrying traffic
over Pine River Channel, the narrow waterway connecting Lake Michigan to Round
Lake, where the Beaver Islander docks, would not go up on command that morning,
meaning that the boat could not leave the dock.
An electrical surge in the municipal power plant had knocked out switches in the bridge
controls, and no one knew how to repair them — until a Highway Department technician
could drive up from Lansing. That meant that the 8:30 trip from Charlevoix didn't leave
until 1:15 in the afternoon.
On most Sundays, this would have bothered only a few passengers and those waiting for
the Sunday papers to arrive on the island. But this was the Sunday of Homecoming
Weekend, the busiest day of the summer. On Sunday afternoon and early evening, all the
visitors and island folks throng to the Holy Cross Parish Hall for a charity dinner — a
half-chicken, roasted on an outdoor grill, mounds of mashed potatoes and gravy, sweet
corn, cole slaw, home-baked biscuits and pies, coffee and cold drinks — $10 for adults,
$5 for children.
The bridge problem in Charlevoix discouraged some people from making the trip and
delayed others. As a result, the last return trip, which should have left Beaver Island at
5:30 p.m., did not go until 10 p.m. And when it reached Charlevoix, damned if the bridge
didn't balk again, refusing to lift and forcing the ferry to circle out beyond the channel.
This time, the problem was solved more quickly, but it was still 12:23 a.m., Harbormaster
Marks said, when the ship docked and the weary passengers disembarked.
Now, I ask you, is it just a coincidence that things went haywire around the time the
fence went up, or is there a message for those Homeland Security bureaucrats in
Washington?
As Ronald Reagan might have said, "Tear down this fence, Secretary Chertoff!"
David S. Broder's column appears regularly on editorial pages of The Times. His e-mail
address is davidbroder@washpost.com
Copyright © 2005 The Seattle Times Company
Hackers target U.S. agencies from Chinese Internet
sites
By Bradley Graham
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgibin/PrintStory.pl?document_id=2002451430&zsection_id=2002107549&slug=hackers25
&date=20050825
WASHINGTON — Internet sites in China are being used heavily to target computer
networks in the Defense Department and other U.S. agencies, successfully breaching
hundreds of unclassified networks, according to several U.S. officials.
Classified systems have not been compromised, the officials added. But U.S. authorities
remain concerned because, as one official said, even seemingly innocuous information,
when pulled together from various sources, can yield useful intelligence to an adversary.
"The scope of this thing is surprisingly big," said one of four government officials who
spoke separately about the incidents, which stretch back as far as two or three years and
have been code-named Titan Rain by U.S. investigators. All officials insisted on
anonymity, given the sensitivity of the matter.
Whether the attacks constitute a coordinated Chinese government campaign to penetrate
U.S. networks and spy on government databanks has divided U.S. analysts. Some in the
Pentagon are said to be convinced of official Chinese involvement; others see the
electronic probing as the work of other hackers simply using Chinese networks to
disguise the origins of the attacks.
"It's not just the Defense Department but a wide variety of networks that have been hit,"
including the departments of State, Energy and Homeland Security as well as defense
contractors, the official said. "This is an ongoing, organized attempt to siphon off
information from our unclassified systems."
Another official, however, cautioned against exaggerating the severity of the intrusions.
He said the attacks, while constituting "a large volume," were "not the biggest thing
going on out there."
Perpetrators still unknown
Apart from acknowledging the existence of Titan Rain and providing a sketchy account
of its scope, the officials who were interviewed declined to offer further details, citing
legal and political considerations and a desire to avoid giving any advantage to the
hackers.
One official familiar with the investigation said it has not provided definitive evidence of
who is behind the attacks. "Is this an orchestrated campaign by PRC or just a bunch of
disconnected hackers? We just can't say at this point," the official said, referring to the
People's Republic of China.
With the threat of computer intrusions generally on the rise among Internet users, U.S.
government officials have made no secret that their systems, like commercial and
household ones, are subject to attack. Because the Pentagon has more computers than any
other agency — 5 million worldwide — it is the most exposed to hackers, the officials
said.
Over the past few years, the Defense Department has taken steps to better organize its
cyber security. Last year, responsibility for managing the Pentagon's computer networks
was assigned to the new Joint Task Force for Global Network Operations under the U.S.
Strategic Command.
"Like everybody connected to the Internet, we're seeing a huge spike" in outside scanning
of Pentagon systems, said Lt. Col. Mike VanPutte, vice director of task-force operations.
"That's really for two reasons. One is, the tools are much simpler today. Anyone can
download an attack tool and target any block on the Internet. The second is, the intrusiondetection systems in place today," which are more sophisticated and can identify more
attacks.
"The last hop"
Pentagon figures show that more attempts to scan Defense Department systems come
from China, which has 119 million Internet users, than from any other country. VanPutte
said this does not mean that China is where all the probes start, only that it is "the last
hop" before they reach their targets.
He noted that China is a convenient "steppingstone" for hackers because of the large
number of computers there that can be compromised. Also, tracing hackers who use
Chinese networks is complicated by the lack of cyber-investigation agreements between
China and the United States, another task force official said.
The number of attempted intrusions from all sources identified by the Pentagon last year
totaled about 79,000, defense officials said, up from about 54,000 in 2003. Of those,
hackers succeeded in gaining access to a Defense Department computer in about 1,300
cases. The vast majority of these instances involved what VanPutte called "low risk"
computers.
Copyright © 2005 The Seattle Times Company
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
Wednesday, August 24, 2005 · Last updated 9:56 a.m. PT
Customs blocked accused suicide bomber
By LARA JAKES JORDAN
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
WASHINGTON -- U.S. Customs authorities blocked a Jordanian man from entering the country
20 months before he was accused of carrying out an Iraq suicide bombing, according to an
internal Homeland Security memo obtained Wednesday.
The Aug. 22 memo to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff credited Customs agents
with identifying Ra'ed Mansour al-Banna as a suspicious traveler on June 14, 2003, when he flew
into Chicago's O'Hare International Airport.
"While it is not clear that al-Banna was a suicidal jihadist, the basis for denying him entry was that
CBP (Customs and Border Protection) officers that interviewed him believed his intent for
entering ... was inconsistent with the purpose of his visa," wrote Customs and Border Protection
Commissioner Robert C. Bonner.
Al-Banna has been accused of carrying out one of Iraq's deadliest suicide bombing - the Feb. 28
attack in Hillah that killed 125 people.
But the Jordanian government and al-Banna's family said he carried out a different suicide
bombing in Iraq. The terrorist group al-Qaida in Iraq claimed responsibility for the Hillah bombing.
The Homeland Security memo, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press, said alBanna was carrying a valid Jordanian passport and valid work visa. But the Customs agents
believed the passport was falsified, and ultimately rejected al-Banna's entry after secondary
security screening and questioning, said Customs spokeswoman Kristi Clemens.
Al-Banna's denied entry into the United States was briefly mentioned in an April report in Time
Magazine.
--On the Net:
U.S. Customs and Border Protection: http://www.cbp.gov/
October hearings set on Makah request to resume whaling
2005-08-25
http://www.peninsuladailynews.com/sited/story/html/215750
NEAH BAY -- The public process on the Makah tribe's request to resume whaling will start in October with
hearings in Neah Bay, Port Angeles and Seattle.
Once begun, the process is expected to be protracted and contentious.
When the Makah went whaling in 1999 -- killing a 30-ton female gray whale on May 17 -- the tribe attracted
international attention and hundreds of protesters.
Tribal members received death threats from anti-whaling activists, and the tribe's Web site was hacked so it
looked like it was dripping blood.
The intense reaction to the Makah killing its one and only gray whale since the late 1920s has reverberated
with court cases and environmental requirements, which have effectively stopped any new whale hunts
since 2000.
One lawsuit that prompted a shutdown of whaling was filed by animal rights groups and individuals,
including five Clallam County residents, who contended a whale hunt would threaten a small population of
``resident'' gray whales that lingers in the Strait of Juan de Fuca.
The potential impacts of a hunt on the environment and public safety were not known, the plaintiffs also
argued.
A 2004 federal court ruling in favor of the activists' arguments directed the Makah, the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration and the National Marine Fisheries Service to conduct an environmental impact
statement and seek permit or waiver requirements of the Marine Mammal Protection Act.
Last Feb. 3, the Makah Tribal Council resolved to apply for a waiver.
On Feb. 11, it filed the request to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
``The tribe believes that approval . . . is necessary for the United States to fulfill its obligations to the tribe
under the Treaty of Neah Bay,'' wrote Ben Johnson Jr., tribal chairman.
The 1855 treaty specifically granted the Makah ``the right of taking fish and of whaling or sealing at usual
and accustomed grounds and stations.''
The Makah have the only treaty guaranteeing whaling.
Court: Rockfish must be protected
By Hal Bernton
Seattle Times staff reporter
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgibin/PrintStory.pl?document_id=2002451477&zsection_id=2002111777&slug=rockfish2
5m&date=20050825
A federal appeals court ruled yesterday that federal officials must increase protection for
the darkblotched rockfish, a decision that could lead to further restrictions on trawl fleets
that fish the ocean waters off Washington, Oregon and California.
The darkblotched rockfish is designated by the federal government as an overfished
species that typically is scooped up by fishermen as they pursue more healthy stocks of
fish.
A three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the quota set by the
federal government for darkblotched rockfish harvest was "patently unreasonable," and
that a federally required rebuilding plan tilted too far toward meeting short-term
economic needs at the expense of conservation.
Fishery managers had initially set a catch quota of 130 metric tons, based on estimates
that the darkblotched rockfish population had fallen to 22 percent of its historic
population. Even though further study showed that stocks had actually fallen to 12
percent of their old levels, the quota was increased in 2002 to 168 metric tons and a
timetable to rebuild the stocks pushed back from a target of 10 years to 34 years.
"The court recognized that severely overfished species like darkblotched rock need
immediate protection before they are pushed beyond the point of no return," said Drew
Caputo, a senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, which joined with
Oceana as plaintiffs.
The quotas on the darkblotched rockfish and other overfished species already have
significantly limited the size of the total Northwest groundfish harvest.
Yesterday's ruling will require federal fishery managers to reconsider the darkblotched
quota, and could prompt a broader review of rebuilding plans for populations of other
overfished species in the Pacific Northwest and elsewhere.
"It will likely apply to other fisheries throughout the country," said Bud Walsh, a San
Francisco attorney who represented fishermen and processors in the case.
Brian Gorman, a spokesman for NOAA Fisheries, said federal attorneys were still
studying the ruling, and were uncertain about whether there will be broader impacts.
"One of the real challenges in managing the Northwest fisheries is the enormous number
of intermixed species that are caught together," Gorman said. "Some are in good shape,
and some are in bad shape."
Hal Bernton: 206-464-2581 or hbernton@seattletimes.com
Copyright © 2005 The Seattle Times Company
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
Wednesday, August 24, 2005 · Last updated 8:48 p.m. PT
Court: Feds must up groundfish protection
By TERENCE CHEA
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/printer/ap.asp?category=1501&slug=Depleted%20Groundfish
SAN FRANCISCO -- An appeals court ruled Wednesday that the federal government
must increase protections for the Pacific fish species commonly known as red snapper,
whose population has been depleted by overfishing.
The decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reverses a lower court ruling that
the National Marine Fisheries Service did not violate federal law when it boosted fishing
quotas for the species, the darkblotched rockfish.
In 2002, conservation groups sued the fisheries service, alleging that its violated the law
by raising fishing quotas for darkblotched rockfish by nearly 30 percent even though it
knew the species was severely overfished.
On Wednesday, the San Francisco-based court sided with the environmentalists, calling
the 2002 quota "patently unreasonable." Quotas for darkblotched rockfish have stayed the
same or risen over the past three years.
The three-judge panel said federal law requires the government to give conservation of
fisheries priority over the short-term economic interests of fishing communities.
"Without immediate efforts at rebuilding depleted fisheries, the very long-term survival
of those fishing communities is in doubt," the court wrote.
The court sent the case back to the lower court to decide what measures the fisheries
service must take to protect darkblotched rockfish.
Environmentalists were pleased with the decision.
"Strong protections for overfished species not only help the fish, but they also help the
long-term economics of the fishing industry," said Drew Caputo, an attorney for the
Natural Resources Defense Council, one of the plaintiffs.
The National Marine Fisheries Service was disappointed in the ruling, but was
encouraged that "the court sees we have some flexibility in considering the economic
needs of fishing communities," said spokesman Brian Gorman.
The appeals court upheld the lower court's decision on fishing quotas for three other
groundfish species.
WWII dry dock leased by Todd
By Jennifer Sullivan
Seattle Times staff reporter
Gawkers are forewarned: when the Mighty Servant submerges in Elliott Bay next week,
the massive Navy transport vessel won't be in distress.
It's simply how the 632-foot ship will unload a World War II-era dry dock being
stationed at Todd Pacific Shipyards. The company is leasing the dock, "The Resolute,"
from the Navy after winning a bidding war last year. Todd Pacific plans to use the dock
to repair commercial and Navy ships.
Officials at Todd Pacific aren't sure when the Mighty Servant will arrive but say it could
be as early as Tuesday.
"It's not sinking, it's submerging," said Stephen Welch, CEO of Todd Pacific Shipyards.
"The Mighty Servant is shaped like the final inch of a Lincoln Log; the cutout is where
the ship [dry dock] rests. The Servant discharges its cargo by ballasting water into its
tank. ... It [the ship] submerges until the cargo is set free."
Dry docks are used to hoist ships in need of repair out of the water and onto a platform.
At Todd Pacific, vessels can be dry-docked for up to 10 weeks; each dock normally
handles one vessel at a time, Welch said.
Welch likens a dry dock to a lidless shoebox with the ends cut off.
A portion of the dock is submerged so a vessel will float in through one of the open ends.
The dock is then raised, and the vessel is lifted out of the water onto blocks inside the
dock for repairs.
The Mighty Servant and The Resolute left the Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Virginia last
month and sailed around South America en route to Seattle. It's unclear where the vessel
is now.
The Navy moved The Resolute because it wanted more dry-dock space here for its class
of ships that are about 500 feet long, Welch said. Todd Pacific is leasing the dock for an
undisclosed sum from the Navy for up to 20 years, Welch said.
The Resolute was built in 1944 and was designed to deploy near enemy lines and keep
ships ready for battle, according to the Navy. After World War II, the dock was placed in
the reserve fleet. From 1958 to 1982, it was leased to a shipyard in Jacksonville, Fla.
After an overhaul, The Resolute was moved to Norfolk, where it dry-docked nuclear
submarines, the Navy said.
Because the Navy owns the dry dock, Todd Pacific must give priority to repairing Navy
vessels, Welch said. When the Navy ships aren't dry-docked, the company can use it for
commercial-ship repairs, Welch said.
Todd Pacific will now have three dry docks, Welch said. The Resolute has a lifting
capacity of 18,000 tons, the Emerald Sea dry dock has a capacity of 40,000 tons and the
Navy owned YFD-70 dry dock has a capacity of 17,500 tons.
Jennifer Sullivan: 206-464-8294 or jensullivan@seattletimes.com
Copyright © 2005 The Seattle Times Company
US wants satellites on oil rigs and weather buoys
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/print.cfm?objectid=10342284
WASHINGTON - The United States plans to put sensors on oil rigs and weather buoys to spot security
threats at sea and may use satellites, unmanned planes and commercial jets to monitor ships as far as 2000
nautical miles away.
Rear Admiral Joseph Nimmich, a top coastguard official, said the steps would be part of efforts to thwart any
seaborne attacks by al Qaeda or other militant groups by detecting threats early and "moving the border as
far out as possible".
"Right after 9/11, we started realising that for us to be successful, we have to understand more about what
goes on in the maritime world," he told Reuters in an interview on Tuesday.
The quest for what the coastguard calls greater "Maritime Domain Awareness" is included in a new maritime
security strategy under review at the White House, which could get approval in six to eight weeks, Nimmich
said.
Coastguard pilot projects have already put radio receivers on privately owned oil rigs and government
weather buoys which pick up routine Automatic Identification System (AIS) ship signals that identify vessels
and their cargo.
The coastguard can then check the data from these signals against available intelligence and other
resources, looking for inaccuracies, anomalies or anything suspicious, to assess potential threats.
But the oil platforms and buoys can only pick up these signals a few hundred miles out to sea.
"What we are testing is various ways of getting that information from as far offshore as possible," said
Nimmich, who heads the Maritime Domain Awareness programme. He said the coastguard wanted to push
a current 75-mile tracking radius to 2000 nautical miles, and ultimately across the globe.
The agency has asked a satellite communications company to look into picking up these signals, but it has
so far only made "preliminary inquiries" to see if airlines would be willing to do the same.
Nimmich said putting radio receivers on small, unmanned aircraft could also be an option.
Efforts to gather information from ships up to 2000 miles away from the United States could raise some
concerns among neighbouring states and the shipping industry.
A 2000-mile reach would include vessels in the territorial waters of many other countries including Canada,
Mexico, and parts of Central and South America.
The information on ships' location and cargo can also be commercially sensitive and provide competitive
advantages if it falls into the wrong hands.
The coastguard says it will ensure the data is protected, and it is trying to allay the concerns of neighbouring
states and the shipping industry.
Ships above 300 gross tons -- which account for the bulk of vessels crossing oceans -- must transmit the
AIS signal, which gives information such as the vessel's size, speed, location and direction, as well as data
on its cargo.
While this information is not a foolproof means of spotting threats, it helps the coastguard assess risk and
whittle down the number of approaching vessels to focus on those which trigger red flags. Some 7000-8000
foreign vessels dock in the United States each year.