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1. PURPOSE AND NEED
U.S. Navy nuclear ships are decommissioned and defieled at the end of their usefi Metime, when
the cost of continued operation is not justified by their fitary capabfity, or when the ship is no
longer needed.
The Navy needs to disposition the reactor compartments born defieled and
decommissioned ctisers, and OHIO Class and LOS ANGELES Class submarines. The number of
reactor compartments under consideration by this Environmental Impact Statement is about 100.
These reactor compartments are in addition to the pre-LOS ANGELES Class submarines tieady
being disposed of under the Na&s 1984 Find Environmental hpact Statement (USN, 1984a).
Newer types of U.S. Navy nuclear-powered stips that are not expected to be decommissioned in
the next 20 years (e.g., aircraft carriers,
SEAWOLF Class submarines) are not included in this
fid Enviromentd Impact Statement.
1.1 Background
As of the end of 1994, the U.S. Navy had 99 nuclear-powered submarines and 13 nuclear-powered
surface ships in operation.
Today, over 40% of the Na@s major combatant warships are
nuclear-powered.
In the late 1970’s and early 1980’s the Navy evaluated options for disposing of the pre-LOS
ANGELES class nuclear-powered submarine reactor compartments as the ships were reaching the
end of their design Me. The Record of Decision issued by the Secretary of the Navy for the Na@s
1984 Find Environmental Impact Statement (USN, 1984b) stated that ~ased on consideration of
dl current factors bearing on a tisposd action of this kind contemplated, the Navy has decided to
proceed with disposd of the reactor compartments by land burial? As of the end of 1994, the Navy
has safely shipped 43 submarine reactor compartments to the Department of Ener~s Low Level
Burial Grounds at Hanford, Washington.
Today the Navy faces the necessity of downsifig the fleet to an extent that was not envisioned in
the 1980’s before the end of the Cold War. Over the next several years most of the nuclear-powered
cruisers til be removed from service.
The Navy has tieady removed from service USS TE~S
(CGN39), USS ~G~W (CGN38), USS TR~TUN (CGN35) and USS LONG BEACH (CGN9).
Some LOS ANGELES Class submarines are schedtied for removal from service as we~. The Navy
has removed from service ‘USS BATON ROUGE (SSN 68g), ~d is fi the process of ~activat~g
USS OMAHA (SSN 692), and USS C~C~ATI (SSN 693). Eventutiy, the Navy W dso need
to decommission 0~0 Class submarines.
Disposal of the reactor compartments from these
classes of nuclear-powered ships was not considered in the 1984 Environmental hpact Statement,
(USN, 1984a). Since the fid submarines of the LOS ANGELES Class and 0~0 Class are st~
under construction, the need to dispose of the ships of these classes W extend to the end of their
service life, which codd be in excess of 30 years.
US Navy nuclear-powered ships are defieled during inactivation and prior to transfer of the crew.
The defietig process removes the nuclear fiel born the reactor pressure vessel and consequently
removes most of the radioactivity from the reactor plant.
Defuebg is an operation routinely
accomphshed using established processes at shipyar~ qu~ed to perform reactor servicing work.
Removed spent fiel wotid be handed in accordance with either the Enviromentd Assessment
(USN, 1993) and Finding of No Significant hpact (USN, 1994) or the U.S. Department of Energy
Programmatic Spent Nuclear Fuel Management and Idaho National Engineering Laboratory
Environmental Restoration and Waste Management Programs Environmental hpact Statement,
(DOE, 1995). A Record of Decision was issued in June 1995. Storage and disposd of spent fiel
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