U.S.S. Oriskany, From Aircraft Carrier to Largest Artificial Reef in the World
by Michael Graham Richard, Gatineau, Canada on 08.25.08
Turning Ships into Artificial Reefs
Some naval vessels such as the U.S.S. Oriskany get a second life. Instead of being sent to ship-breakers, they get a second career as artificial reefs and are turned into habitat for marine species.
U.S.S. Oriskany
The largest of those is the U.S.S. Oriskany (nicknamed Mighty O, The O-boat, and Toasted O), a Essex-class aircraft carrier that was launched in 1945 and commissioned in 1950. It was sunk by the Navy 24 miles (39 km) south of Pensacola, Florida, in 2006, and its 44,000 tons became an artificial reef where 38 species of fish have been seen so far.
The decision to turn the carrier into a reef was made in 2004. Environmental remediation work (costing $20 million, and they still left 700 pounds of polychlorinated biphenyls, mostly in the electrical wiring insulation), and ecological and human health studies were conducted by Navy scientists in consultation with the Environmental Protection Agency to make sure that sinking the ship wouldn't cause problems.
KABOOM!
Wikipedia:
A Navy Explosive Ordnance Disposal team from Panama City, FL detonated C-4 explosive charges of approximately 500 total pounds (230 kg) net explosive weight, strategically placed on 22 sea connection pipes in various machinery spaces. Thirty seven minutes after detonation, the ship sank stern first in 210 feet (64 m) of water in the Gulf of Mexico.
In 2006, the Discovery Channel (who owns TreeHugger) featured "Sinking of an Aircraft Carrier", a documentary feature about the sinking of the U.S.S. Oriskany.
The US Navy is currently sitting on 59 inactive ships. Most will be turned into scrap metal, but some will become artificial reefs if the U.S.S. Oriskany experience turns out well.
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I bet that's a fantastic dive.
best use ?
i dont know what the tipping point might be, but at what point would it be more useful to reclaim that 44,000 tons of steel & embodied energy instead of having to mine/process new material to make an equivalent amount of steel? I figure as commodity values grow, this could be more of an issue?
I think they probably take into account how much $ from tourists this can attract, how it can help local habitats become more productive, etc.. All of that might be worth more than the steel in the shit, especially if it takes a lot of work to break it down (most are sent to bangladesh, iirc).
Regarding the value of the scrap: a ton of shredded cars costs about $550 (August price, Chicago).
So the scrap value of the ship, once actually scrapped (cut up, processed and put on the market as scrap), would be something in the vicinity of $24,200,000.
Of course, the Navy would see less of that, since the scrapping company would want their profits. There would also be various other factors (types of steel involved, etc.), but $24 million is probably a reasonable guess.
By way of comparison, new structural steel (the kind they make skyscrapers out of), is presently something around $1200 per ton (different sizes are worth different amounts, so I picked the middle of the range).
...none of the foregoing includes energy use, except as a factor in determining the market price. Also, I have no position on the sink-vs-reuse issue; this is all merely for the sake of interest.
Scrap seems a better use. Didn't the artificial reefs made of tires just turn into dead zones? Seems like a greenwash for dumping.
I hope it works ...
How much would it cost to scrap it would be the real issue, that is going to take a real serious torch and equipment to scrap something that large and thick.
I bet the torch in my garage wouldn't do a thing to it!
The sport diving depth limit is 130 ft.- I dont think you can expect much in the way of tourism from this. You have too a very specific set of skills and equipment to go that deep, not many people can do it.
The Discovery Channel program explained that there had been a bidding process by states to have the carrier sunk off their shores because of the reef tourism. I would figure that states wouldn't be competing to have the Oriskany sunk in their waters if it was actually "dumping".
The salvage and demolitions company that was prepping the Oriskany for sinking mentioned that they were making sure to make the ship safe for divers, meaning leaving nothing they could get tangled in.
The wikipedia article mentions the artificial reef made of tires. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_reef
Yes, it is an AWESOME dive (just dove it a couple of weeks ago). Yes, it is very popular dive. There were ten boats there when I went. Although the deck is at 135 (actually past recreational limit), the tower is at 70 feet, so there is plenty to do for all. For really no reason, I posted about my dive here - http://www.dotphys.net/files/oriskany.html
Nice! Russian-style waste management. Reeally ecological!
All that steel wasted! Just calculate the amount of energy expended in making that steel.
Csmr
Nice! Russian-style waste management. Reeally ecological!
All that steel wasted! Just calculate the amount of energy expended in making that steel.
Csmr
"All that steel wasted! Just calculate the amount of energy expended in making that steel."
Look at the whole picture. Look at how it would have been recycled (sent to bangladesh?), at the benefits of the reef, and at the fact that steel isn't exactly rare right now. This ship is nothing compared to all the steel that ends up in landfills; we should mine those if we want steel..
Pensacola is my closest beach. I mentioned this to a friend who was in the navy. He wasn't surprised. He said they sink old vessels for target practice all the time. He was surprised they didn't do that with this one, but instead used the C4.
you silly environmentalist the oriskany is not just a piece of reusable trash the purpose of sinking this ship was to create a home for numerous species of aquatic life so you hypocrites need to stop whinning that ship is helping the environment not destroying it!!!