HMCS Annapolis , an old Canadian Submarine Sweeper is being sank to the bottom of Howe Sound in early 2015 to become an artificial reef. I say that under no circumstances toxic substances should be introduced to marine environment, if it can be avoided. I say HMCS Annapolis should be made into on shore attraction, where it would not emmit tones of toxic paint into the water. Artificial Reef Society of British Columbia (ARSBC), society that executes the sinking, admits the ship is full of toxic paint; though, they seem to have the permit after going through a lot of court hearings. I did not tell them to keep the ship on shore due to environmental concerns because, I cannot load their website to write them a letter; though, keeping future ships as attractions on shores instead of sinking them is the solution to environmental problem imposed by ARSBC, I just thought of.
If it stays above water it’s going to need fresh paint for the remainder of it’s lifespan, previous artificial reef projects in the past have saved or augmented fragile habitats despite their toxic paint.
My two cents, as someone on the verge of holding a bonafide degree in environmental science is that habitat destruction is without a doubt the biggest problem we impose on the natural word, and things like global warming are threatening specifically because of threats to habitats already in peril from human activity. Coastal areas in particular are really in jeopardy from pH change so anything that can give those areas an edge and then also function as a wave break that will protect our developments.
I like museums and the idea that sunken ships become underwater museums and zoos, unfortunate though that SCUBA diving is a luxury hobby.
Well I hope that perspective helps explain why they’re so keen on sinking ships, I’m sure they’d prefer non-toxic paint of course.
If you’re curious about environmental toxicity for any number of things I’ve found the two terms “environmental fate” and “risk analysis” tend to deliver good search results.
Interested I took a quick look and found that the worst chemical TBT may not be present on the Annapolis. However, the copper based Antifouling that does exist I did not get enough information to form an opinion. One thing I did notice is that the Canadian guidelines for antifouling paint is “Coatings applied more than twelve years in the past will be considered non-active.” However in the article linked below, the anti-fouling paint was shown to be active 25 years on in an artificial reef in the UK. (no colonization had taken place in the TBT coated areas)
Now seeing the amount of work done on HMCS Annapolis by ARSBC and volunteers, it would be unfare to them to not sink the ship. It is also no longer suitable for on shore museum. Therefore, I say ARSBC should clean up the ship more, scrape the paint and sink the ship. After that the society should stop buying and sinking the ships and start building artificial reefs in many possible environmentally friendly ways with environmentally harmless materials.