Navy Cannot Find Records to Quell Claims of Continued Open Sea Dumping

[kpete]

Source: PEER

For Immediate Release: July 21, 2010
Contact: Kirsten Stade [phone]

DOES THE NAVY KNOW WHERE ITS MUNITIONS GO? —
Navy Cannot Find Records to Quell Claims of Continued Open Sea Dumping

Washington, DC — The U.S. Navy cannot account for the disposition of artillery shells, missiles and other heavy munitions when its warships return to American ports after deployment, according to a lawsuit filed today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). PEER has received reports that the Navy still dumps ordnance at open sea to avoid cumbersome security arrangements for high-impact explosives when ships enter U.S. ports.

On March 15, 2010, PEER submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to the Department of the Navy asking it for any records relating to disposal of unused munitions from Navy vessels returning to port as well as for copies of charts of known ammunition disposal areas in waters off U.S. coasts. For decades, both the Navy and the U.S. Army routinely dumped unwanted ordnance, including chemical weapons, at sea. Precisely when (or if) the practice of ocean dumping ended is not well documented.

After the PEER request was acknowledged by the Chief of Naval Operations, it was shuttled to a number of naval commands, each concluding that it either could not find any responsive documents or not responding at all. The naval commands in this fruitless bureaucratic odyssey include the –

* Naval Facilities Engineering Command (NAVFAC);
* Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA);
* Naval Supply Systems Command (NAVSUP);
* Naval Operational Logistics Support Center (NOLSC); and
* Ammunition Logistics Directorate (which offered no acronym).

“What ultimately happens to our naval armaments did not seem like a tough question but perhaps we are missing some hidden complexity,” mused PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch, who filed the document request after receiving complaints that some naval commands had reverted to old habits by jettisoning artillery shells and other munitions to avoid in-port storage procedures and/or to circumvent shortages of approved storage bunker space. “Hopefully, someone in the Navy tracks what happen



Read more: http://www.peer.org/news/news_id.php?row_id=1377

[jgraz]

1. I have a great solution: cut the Navy by 90%

We'll still have a bigger navy than every other country in the world, and we won't have to worry about our tax dollars going to kill the oceans.

[Owl]

4. I agree. Slash the funding. Slash the waste.

[Owl]

2. Great. So they toss everything overboard, polluting the ocean, so we can buy it all again?

Where the heck is accountability and common sense?

[wordpix]

3. probably another "dump the regs" policy under BushCo---it's their style

:puke:

[hack89]

5. What a steaming pile of horse shit

PEER has received reports that the Navy still dumps ordnance at open sea to avoid cumbersome security arrangements for high-impact explosives when ships enter U.S. ports.

There are no "cumbersome security arrangements" for weapons and ordnance for ships - they stay in the shipboard magazines that were specifically designed for the secure storage of weapons. Do these morons really think that ship's get rid of their weapons every time they enter port? The only time a ship is emptied of all it's weapons is when they are having extensive maintenance done - something that might happen every 3 to 4 years.

They are conflating two separate issues - in the past the military routinely dumped old and expired munitions at sea. It was mainly to get rid of the huge stocks from WWII and Vietnam. But that practiced stopped in the 1980's. An the dumping grounds were hardly secret - look at any nautical chart of US coastal waters and you will see plenty of marked munitions dumping grounds.