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Pearl Harbor may get amphib group

Hawaii didn’t get the Carl Vinson aircraft carrier strike group, but planning is underway that could bring a smaller cousin — an amphibious assault ship and its escort ships — to Pearl Harbor, officials said.

An amphibious ready group “is almost as good as getting an aircraft carrier,” said Loren Thompson, a defense expert with the Lexington Institute in Virginia. “It’s fewer personnel, but it’s an entire war-fighting package of ships and aircraft.”

Such a ship grouping typically has at its core a carrierlike assault ship with helicopters and Harrier jump jets, a transport dock ship and a dock landing ship.

More than 2,000 Marines can be carried on the three main ships in the amphibious group, which also can be bulked up with cruisers, destroyers and submarines.

The three ships would bring in the neighborhood of 1,900 sailors, new jobs and more ship repair work. The downside includes more children in local schools, more cars on the roads and some jet and helicopter noise.

When Hawaii could get an amphibious group and which ships are being considered is unclear, but one official said planning is at the midway point in the process.

Jim Tollefson, president of the Chamber of Commerce of Hawaii, said the possibility of the ship grouping for Hawaii “definitely has been brought up before at high levels.”

In addition to the strategic value, Tollefson said, “I definitely see it as a positive economic impact.”

He said an amphibious group represents “an excellent alternative” to a carrier because it fits the Navy’s need for a forward-based force but represents less of a problem in accommodating a carrier’s larger number of personnel, totaling about 5,700 with the air wing. There’s also less jet noise.

An 844-foot Wasp-class assault ship, the centerpiece of the amphibious group, has a crew of 1,108, about two dozen helicopters and six AV-8B Harrier attack aircraft, according to Navy information.

U.S. Pacific Fleet released a statement saying the Navy is “always examining where to best home port and position our forces. No decisions have been announced about moving any amphibious assault ships to Pearl Harbor.”

Daniel Dinell, executive director of the Hawaii Community Development Authority, which has oversight for the redevelopment of the former Barbers Point Naval Air Station, now called Kalaeloa, recently said he, too, was aware of talk of an amphibious assault ship for Pearl Harbor.

There had been noise concerns about basing part of an aircraft carrier air wing at Kalaeloa and using the airfield, but an amphibious ship “could fly the helicopters directly in from the ocean, over the Coast Guard station and land, and you haven’t crossed any housing,” Dinell said.

Dinell also said that if the Navy wants to build, for example, 1,000 military residential units as part of the total 6,350 homes that are planned there, “that’s fine. It’s good for the area.”

Jane Ross, who’s on the Makakilo/Kapolei/Honokai Hale Neighborhood Board, still worries about helicopter noise with such a plan.

In the past, residents have had “terrible experiences” with Army CH-47D twin-rotor Chinook helicopters, she said.

“They go over us, and they are so low — it’s awful,” she said. “They seem to have no special plan to avoid houses that are below.”

Ross said she hasn’t noticed a noise problem with Coast Guard aircraft using Kalaeloa, so the problem doesn’t seem to be universal.

“If [the Navy] would work with the community and try to avoid flying low and flying over land as much as possible, that might be OK,” Ross said. “But [noise] is a big concern.”

Relocation costs doomed Hawaii’s chances for the aircraft carrier Vinson, which the Navy recently announced will go to San Diego after an East Coast overhaul. The Vinson was previously based in Bremerton, Wash.

But the same reason that made Hawaii attractive for a carrier — a sailing time to potential hot spots that is shorter than from the West Coast — makes it just as attractive as a home port for the amphibious ready group, experts said.

“It would make tremendously good sense to have such a force in Hawaii, because that force would be postured for quick response to emergencies anywhere from the Korean Peninsula all the way down to Southeast Asia,” Thompson said.

“It’s hard to overstate the military advantage of going off to war in the Pacific from Hawaii rather than having to go all the way from the West Coast of the United States. It can really make the difference between winning and losing.”

Four amphibious assault ships are based in San Diego, with a new ship, the Makin Island, expected to be completed a year from now. Six other amphibious assault ships are home-ported in Norfolk, Va., and one is in Sasebo, Japan.

Pete Litrenta, executive director of the San Diego Ship Repair Association, said the arrival of the Carl Vinson, with a crew of 3,200, will pump about $270 million annually into the local economy.

The Navy had been considering Pearl Harbor; Guam; San Diego; and Puget Sound, Wash., as the next home port for the big ship, which would have brought 85 jets, prop aircraft and helicopters to Hawaii.

Although both Hawaii and Guam are seen as having response time advantages over the West Coast, the more than $2 billion cost to base the carrier here and $5 billion for Guam were seen as prohibitive.

Litrenta said about $220 million of the anticipated $270 million annual economic impact to San Diego will be from salaries alone, and with three ships in an amphibious ready group, Hawaii also would see a significant benefit.

“That’s the money that really gets spread out in the economy,” he said.

Oahu’s Marine population of 6,500 — a number that will grow by up to 1,000 in coming years — would be expected to be used for the planned amphibious landing force.