Sinking of Battleship creating environmental problems

Sinking of battleship sparks environmental fears
Tim Naumetz, For CanWest News Service

OTTAWA - The Environment Department has approved a navy plan to haul the retired destroyer HMCS Huron out onto the Pacific Ocean, where U.S. and Canadian ships and jets will use it as target practice until it sinks two kilometres to the ocean floor.
It's a plan environmentalists and one NDP MP say is fraught with problems.
"It's treating the ocean like a garbage dump," said Jennifer Lash, the head of the B.C. activist group Living Oceans says.
"No one even knows what kind of marine life there is down there."
Canadian Forces public relations officers were surprised by a barrage of questions Tuesday following the government's publication last weekend of an Environment Canada permit for the long-planned disposal of the Huron.
If all goes as expected, the Iroquois class destroyer, stripped down to 1,118 metric tonnes of raw steel but still longer than a football field, will succumb to a barrage of missiles, machine-guns, naval cannons and torpedoes in a joint U.S.-Canadian exercise off the B.C. coast next month.
The plan is for the bullet-riddled torn-up hulk of the Huron to sink about 100 kilometres west of Vancouver Island.
"This, as far as I know, is the first Canadian warship that we've sunk in that manner," said Cmdr. Jeff Agnew, head of navy public relations, who noted the practice has been common with other navies for decades.
The Huron, commissioned in 1972, served on blockade patrols during the 1991 Gulf War, intercepted illegal Chinese immigrants in 1999 and was decommissioned in 2005 to furnish spare parts to the remaining three Iroquois class destroyers.
The Environment Department permit appears to set stringent anti-pollution requirements for the event, to the point of listing the ordnance the military will use.
The attack must take place in weather conditions that allow proper positioning of the Huron, the timing must be outside the opening of any commercial fishery and the navy must ensure "all floatables and all petroleum-based products (fuel oil, hydraulic fluids, lubricants, etc.,) are removed from the vessel prior to disposal."
The permit says the route from Canadian Forces Base Esquimalt to the target site in a Canadian military firing area must be "direct."
The method of disposal is listed as: "Firing by Naval Sea Sparrow Missiles, aircraft machine-guns, and naval gunnery (including MK 48 torpedoes)...."
While it may be a Canadian precedent, U.S. and Canadian warships only last year took part in a similar exercise off the coasts of the Hawaiian Islands to sink a retired American warship, the U.S.S. O'Brien, said Agnew.
Live-fire exercises against an actual warship, rather than dummy targets, give battle crews the opportunity they require to test the lethal weaponry they control and see its effect first-hand, he added.
Agnew said the missiles and torpedoes that hit the Huron will contain no radioactive material and the ordnance will leave only "background levels" of lead on the ocean bottom.
However, Lash, Green party Leader Elizabeth May and NDP environment critic Nathan Cullen all say that sinking a massive steel ship in the ocean sends the wrong signal in this environmentally sensitive era.
"People don't just drive their car off a cliff into the lake when they're done with it," said Cullen.
Added May: "It's crazy, we've just had the kerfuffle over U.S. navy live-fire exercises in the Great Lakes."
May was referring to a U.S. Coast Guard proposal for live-fire exercises on the lakes, which was withdrawn after opposition from groups concerned about the impact on commercial shipping, recreational boating and the environment.
Agnew said the Canadian navy takes a back seat to no one in environmental protection, to the point ship captains go beyond international rules and customarily keep all ship garbage on board until reaching port.
"In today's day and age, the Canadian Forces is an exceptionally strong steward of the environment," said Agnew, noting the navy followed all Environment Canada requirements for approval of the permit.

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When many people think about a battleship going down they would first ask if everyone was alright? What happened? and so on. One question that should be asked is what is going to be affected by the mass of metal falling to the ocean floor? What is this metal and chemicals going to destroy?