Suisan Bay Ghost Fleet Finally To Leave SF - Will Be Cleaned, Sent To TX For Scrapping

[hatrack]

The federal government and environmental groups reached an agreement Wednesday that will mean the end of the ghost fleet of retired ships in Suisun Bay. The vessels were once part of a mighty reserve fleet of warships and freighters, but time and neglect has turned them into what one environmental advocate called "a floating toxic waste dump." Only 52 ships remain of a fleet that once was as big as a good-size Navy, and these rusting old vessels will be removed and cleaned up for an ocean voyage to Texas, where they will be scrapped. The fleet will be reduced gradually, with 25 ships in the worst condition taken out within two years and the remainder by fall 2017. The settlement, which must be approved by a federal court in Sacramento, ends a long dispute over the ships, which have been a fixture in the bay just east of Benicia for generations.

After World War II, there were thousands of surplus ships, and, in 1946, the Maritime Administration began keeping the best of them in reserve. At one time, more than 350 ships were in the fleet, including cruisers, destroyers, supply ships, transports and tankers. Many of them were broken out for service in the Korean and Vietnam wars, but the rest stayed in Suisun Bay and gradually became neglected and obsolete - a fleet of ghosts tied up in rows, waiting for a call to duty that never came.

They sat waiting in some cases for more than 30 years; the decks rusted and the ships' coats of lead-based paint peeled and fell into the bay. Environmental groups and the state Regional Water Quality Control Board pressured the Maritime Administration to do something, to no avail. The Maritime Administration relented and last year conducted a survey, which found that more than 20 tons of toxic material from the ships had gotten into Suisun Bay, which is a critical environmental area for fish and wildlife, including the endangered chinook salmon. There are no current plans to clean up the material.

"They were a festering sore in San Francisco Bay," said Rep. George Miller, D-Martinez, who tried to get the pollution stopped for years. "We had people (in the Bush administration) who said nothing could be done." In January, a federal judge in Sacramento ruled in a lawsuit filed by environmental groups that the ships were illegally polluting Suisun Bay. "They were a floating toxic waste dump," said Deb Self, executive director for the San Francisco Baykeeper, an environmental group.

EDIT

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2010/04/01/MN5A1CO3VK.DTL

[sfwriter]

1. Wow... Ive seen those and wondered.

Good to see that era ending.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

2. Interesting that they are not going to a CA shipyard for salvage

[demosincebirth]

4. Probably cause too much toxic waste in the process.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

5. That is no different in Texas, and in CA they would be high paying union jobs.

[Merchant Marine]

6. There are no breakers yards in CA

Also the yard in Texas had a congressional buddy, if you know what I mean.

That's actually why they've been laid up for so long, previously MARAD would send the ships to an indonesian breaker and make money off of it. Scrapping in Texas is a net loss.

Sadly, the closed Mare Island Naval Shipyard in Vallejo still retains working graving docks, cranes, rail lines and etc where these ships could be broken up, and its maybe 10 miles downriver of Suisun. Really a missed opportunity that highlights the utter failure of the California legislature to do anything worthwhile.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

7. I had expected that work to go to Mare Island and consider that they did not a failure of the

CA Senate and Congressional delegation not to block what seems to be parting shot of sorts

[hunter]

3. My mom's parents were welders during WWII.

They built Victory ships.

[this_side_up]

8. TX people must work for lower pay than OR. Plus,

OR currently does not have any of the invasive species in the bay.

From Oct 25, 2009
.....

Department of Transportation announced a new plan for cleaning up and recycling the ships. They will be placed in dry-dock for removal of invasive species clinging to their hulls, and then they'll be towed to Texas for dismantling at a cost to the government of about $2.5 million per ship.

That's a costly but sensible plan that should have been carried out years ago, well before the 2006 deadline set by Congress for scrapping of the ships. And it's far superior to the low-budget scheme hatched in 2005, when the Virginia shipbreakers proposed wrapping the vessels in diaper-like fabric and towing them 500-plus miles to Newport, where they were to be broken apart not in dry-dock but in the waters of Yaquina Bay.

And why Newport? The scrappers determined that meeting Oregon's environmental regulations would have been much less costly than meeting California's.

.....


The shipbreaking operation would have created some temporary low-paying jobs in Newport, but they wouldn't have been worth it. .....


Meanwhile, the first of 57 old "ghost fleet" vessels will soon be cleaned up and towed to Brownsville, Texas, for dismantling. Brownsville has shipbreaking yards, and that's exactly where this dirty, dangerous work should be done.


http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2009/10/a_proper_disposal_plan_for_the.html

[Javaman]

9. I'm surprised they aren't being sent to India...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/3558527.stm

http://southasia.oneworld.net/todaysheadlines/indias-shipbreaking-yards-remain-unsafe