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Military attitude on AAV sinking irritates OkinawansDate Posted: 2005-07-15 A private contractor will raise the AAV from the murky waters where it sank June 9th. Dive teams are already surveying the site, with the salvage vessel expected on site today, and recovery operations to begin within a day or two. The weather and sea conditions will dictate the speed of the recovery operation. The Okinawa Prefecture Government, noting that the Marine vehicle leaked fuel into the Henoko bay when it sank, wants to perform an environmental survey at the site, but U.S. officials are balking at the request. An OPG team is at the site standing by, but Prefecture officials say the military is not responding to their queries. A Marine Corps official says Okinawa units have no authority to approve the OPG request, telling the local government the issue is now in mainland Japan where U.S. Forces Japan will make a decision on whether to approve the survey. Japanese officials had thought the upgrades to the Status of Forces Agreement, which allows much greater local access to U.S. facilities, would have made entry to the Camp Hansen waters easy. Nago City officials, meanwhile, are demanding a suspension to AAV training until the cause of last month’s sinking is determined. The military has notified the city it plans to “conduct training using water surface areas” off Henoko. Nago City Assembly’s base affairs committee chairman, Zentetsu Teruya, says a U.S. move to restart training in the area “without investigating the cause of the accident will seriously impair our mutual trust relationship.” |
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