Archive for July, 2011
Gulf of Alaska ship sinking
Recently, the Navy has gained permission to blast and sink as many as two real ships every year for the next five years in the Gulf of Alaska as “target practice” for pilots and gunners.
A Navy spokesman said that there is currently no schedule to start the Alaska sinkings, but opponents of the practice want to ensure this doesn’t happen. Even Decommissioned, stripped-out ships, like the ones the Navy intends to use as targets, hold lingering dangerous materials that can poison the Gulf’s habitat for years.
Back in May, the Navy finished an environmental review for the new target practice and authorized itself a maximum of two ship sinkings a year. The Sierra Club and Basel Actin Network petitioned the Environmental Protection Agency this month hoping to but a stop to the Navy’s nationwide SINKEX program. They say that instead of allowing these decommissioned vessels to pollute the Gulf, they would rather see them completely recycled.
Colby Self of the Basel Action Network, a Seattle based environmental group says this: “The Navy’s plan to extend SINKEX operations to the Gulf of Alaska, one of the richest fishing grounds in the world, while also acknowledging their intention to sink vessels without first removing all toxins, is a threat to marine life in the Gulf of Alaska.”