The USS Miami, a submarine that sustained $700 million in damage in a shipyard fire, is being decommissioned and scrapped at a cost of $54 million. Some details on the process:
- The Navy inactivates one or two submarines per year out of the current fleet of 72. Miami is the 21st Los Angeles-class attack submarine to be inactivated.
- Some Miami parts are already getting recycled and put aboard other submarines. That includes communication gear, pumps, valves, propeller shaft and desalination unit.
- Portsmouth Naval Shipyard will remove nuclear fuel and ship it to a federal repository in Idaho.
- The reactor will remain onboard when the ship is towed to Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Washington. The reactor will be buried at that state’s Hanford site.
- It’ll take six weeks to tow the submarine via the Panama Canal to Puget Sound.
- After the sub is cut into pieces, its scrap metal will be sold at auction.
- Some cities request their namesake submarine’s “sail,” the conning tower that’s equipped with a periscope, for parks or museums. The city of Miami has made an inquiry that wasn’t specific.
Source: Capt. Michael Elmstrom, Navy program manager for attack submarines.
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