Target practice is now how the Navy gets rid of most of its old ships... they wind up at the bottom of the ocean, bringing with them amounts of toxic waste that are only estimated. Navy documents state that among the toxic substances left onboard the America were more than 500 pounds of PCBs or polychlorinated biphenyls, a chemical banned by the U.S. in 1979, in part because it is long-lasting and accumulates throughout the food chain....
The program — called “Sinkex’’ for sinking exercise— has come under fire from environmentalists for the pollutants it introduces to the sea. The ship recycling industry complains about the jobs and revenues it takes away....
“Each vessel is put through a rigorous cleaning process that includes the removal, to the maximum extent practicable, of all materials which may degrade the marine environment,’...
PCB’s found in fish near an aircraft carrier sunk in 2006 as an artificial reef near Pensacola, Florida have raised concerns about the impacts, although the ship was located much closer to shore and in much shallower waters than Sinkex vessels. Annual monitoring by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission of waters around the USS Oriskany concluded that fish around the carrier exceeded state and federal PCB standards in the first two years...
The PCB concentrations in fish have raised public health concerns that require more study to assess the long-term impacts, said Jon Dodrill, an environmental administrator with Florida’s commission. “Our agency has taken a stance that there will be no more large ships with regulated PCBs sunk in state or adjacent federal waters off of Florida,’’ Dodrill said.
06 March 2012
Deep-sixing old warships - win/win, or not ?
For as long as I can remember, the intentional sinking of old ships in the ocean has been presented as eco-friendly (creating "artificial reefs" for fish). An article at Boston.com summarizes recent concerns that material components within modern ships may be significantly polluting water and contaminating marine life.
In Fiji it's not uncommon for ships to ground on reefs, and the shipping companies often can't afford to get them off. (Try to make them and they'd probably just fold.) Any buyer would take on the responsibility for cleanup, so nobody will touch it until it's done leaking.
ReplyDeleteI am currently reviewing a project to sink a warship as reef, all done by volunteers. The navy spent a million dollars stripping the wire out, because it might have PCB's in it. the volunteers are removing all piping that was used for hydrocarbons and are stripping the high value metals off to help pay costs, the inspection of the vessel prior to release to sink it is intense, far more than what would be done overseas. Here in North america it's almost impossible now to scrap a ship. My office right now is trying to get rid of some derelict 130' steels ships, the contractor won't touch them without $100,000 up front. We don't have that budget, so likely the ships will sink in place.
ReplyDeleteInteresting. Tx, Colin.
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