U.S. Navy may repair aircraft carrier's N-reactor at Yokosuka, breaking another promise to Japan?

Japan Press Weekly

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U.S. Navy may repair aircraft carrier's N-reactor at Yokosuka, breaking another promise to Japan?

Akahata has found that a facility to repair equipment and components related to a nuclear-propelled engine of the U.S. aircraft carrier George Washington has been constructed on the U.S. Yokosuka Naval Base in Kanagawa Prefecture.

The presence of such a repair facility breaks the promise made to the Japanese government by the U.S. forces to neither do nuclear reactor repair work in Japan nor any other work that requires radiation monitoring.

On March 19 in Washington, D.C., Commander Timothy J. Keating of the U.S. Pacific Command testified about the facility at a hearing held by the U.S. House Subcommittee on Military Construction.

Commander Keating admitted that there is a facility called "Controlled Industrial Facility (CIF)" in Japan for the nuclear carrier, and that the U.S. forces will not "permanently station a nuclear carrier" in a place that doesn't have such a facility.

According to a Pentagon document, the CIF, dubbed "Radiological Work Facility", is a facility used "for inspection, modification, and repair of radiological controlled equipment and components associated with Naval nuclear propulsion plants." It is also "for the treatment, reclamation, and packaging for disposal of radiologically controlled liquids and solids."

Since January at the Yokosuka base, maintenance work has been taking place on the USS George Washington and a barge was placed in the carrier's stern on which the repair facility in question was apparently built.

To questions from Akahata about this facility, however, the U.S. Navy headquarters in Japan have not responded as of April 13.

- Akahata, April 14, 2009