The Hawkbill sails no more

After 28 years, submarine decommissioned, dismantled and recycled

(CNN) -- The SCICEX 99 mission marked the final voyage for the Hawkbill. After 28 years of service, the submarine was officially inactivated in a ceremony on August 27, 1999, at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

At the ceremony, Cmdr. Robert Perry said one of the highlights of his tour as commanding officer was the surfacing at the North Pole during the SCICEX 99 mission, a research mission jointly conducted by the U.S. Navy and the National Science Foundation.

"I'm very proud of my men. We've done a lot of great things, notably SCICEX missions, and we've served our country well," he said.

The Hawkbill's SCICEX voyage marked the last Arctic cruise for any Sturgeon class nuclear-powered submarine in the Navy's Pacific Fleet.

After the submarine was decommissioned, it traveled to Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton, Washington, to be recycled for re-useable equipment and scrapped metal. The recycling of the Hawkbill began on October 1, 1999 and ended on December 1, 2000.

The recycling process involved defueling the nuclear reactor, removing the reactor compartment for land disposal, recycling the remainder of the usable material and disposing of the remaining non-recyclable items, according to Diane Manning, who is the deputy congressional & public affairs officer at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard.

The nuclear fuel removed from submarines is sent to a facility that specializes in fuel inspection and storage. The defueled reactor compartment, once removed, is sealed, and transported to a the Department of Energy site at Hanford, Washington.

A typical submarine generates about 3.8 million pounds of recycled metal, mostly carbon, steel and other metals, like aluminum, copper-nickel, stainless steel, brass, and electrical wire.

The metal is divided up and sold to commercial scrap dealers. Equipment that is still useful to the Navy is refurbished for reuse. Any reusable equipment not needed by the Navy or Defense Department is sold to private bidders.

Any equipment that contains sensitive information is either totally destroyed or removed before any disposal or recycling efforts. The entire hull, except for the reactor compartment , is recycled.

A part of the ship does live on, however. The ship's sail was taken to Arco, Idaho, for display at the Idaho Science Center. The center is currently constructing a base for the sail.