Salt water is a youknowwhat.
For a comparison, check out the travails of USS Texas. It’s going to cost millions to fix her, but it looks like she’s finally going to get drydocked and repaired. Assuming that the Parks & Wildlife people don’t do something nefarious in the meantime.
The QM is no doubt filled with ‘toxic’ chemicals, and asbestos. The biggest issue is probably the asbestos. The enviros would go nuts if you just sank her off the coast as a reef without cleaning up all the contaminants.
(Never mind that old ships sink, regardless)
The best option available to them would probably be to sell/give her to the poor people who run ships aground on the shore and break them down by torch in (TWH). But no doubt they can’t do that either.
As it is, she’s much like any other boat, a hole in the water that you throw money into.
The City of Baytown, where I currently live, wants the USS Texas to be moved to Baytown once it’s repair. This is foolishness. The cost of annual upkeep will be very expensive and the city is fooling itself thinking it will attract tourists and and visitors to Baytown.
It will be a financial disaster, just like the city’s financing of the repairs to the “Historic Brunson Theater”. The City is now considering offers to sell the Brunson theater. If they get 20% of the investment back, I’d be very surprised.
As is often the case, civic pride gets in the way of sound financial decisions. When you can’t get a private sector developer to finance finance a project, you know it is doomed for failure. The only exception to this rule is the USS Midway aircraft museum in San Diego. It’s one of the top four tourist attractions in California; and well worth the time and small fee to visit.