Getting rid of the Navy, then mining ...

Las Vegas Review-Journal ^ | 04 nov 07 | VIN SUPRYNOWICZ

[rellimpank]

Received a pleasant call from Marilyn Paige, widow of the late Marine Col. Mitchell Paige, in response to my column of last week about the plans of Paramount Pictures to produce a "G.I. Joe" movie that would transform the American World War II hero into some kind of Brussels-based co-educational U.N. task force.

I believe it would be fair to say we found ourselves in agreement about the Natural Resources Defense Council and other environmental groups now suing the U.S. Maritime Administration, urging the federal government to get the battleship Iowa and other mothballed naval vessels out of San Francisco Bay.

The groups are concerned that oil, asbestos, lead paint and other pollutants may be entering the waters of Suisun Bay from the rusting ships

[rellimpank]

—some followup on this—

—http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1917613/posts

[sauropod]

read

[ought-six]

These lunatics are so predictable. If they were sincere they’d also demand the removal of the Queen Mary from Long Beach. They are so anti-war that they can’t see straight.

[FDNYRHEROES]

The old merchant ships in the Reserve Fleets are way beyond usefulness. Scrapping them would have not been much of a problem until Al Gore got in the way. Al Gore lead the charge to prevent the Maritime Administration from scrapping ships overseas that had asbestos in them. So the ships just sat and rusted for years. The total fuel remaining aboard the ships for many years equaled millions of gallons, a disaster waiting to happen. In the last few years, the Maritime Administration (MARAD) has made significant progress in removing the oil from the ships. Asbestos has been removed from ships prior to being scrapped overseas.

[vets son]

This whole issue of the mothball fleet sitting and rotting is the direct result of Enviro wackos. My fishing club would just love to see these ships sunk off the coast as artificial reefs. If not a solution, it will at least create fishing areas that are now as we speak being put off limits by the MPA’s (marine protected areas) another “program” created by Enviro’s and voted into law by the people of Kalifornia.

But this idea also is being thwarted by the Enviro’s even though it is has been proven that creating artificial reefs that are great for fishing or diving.

[JimRed]

The total fuel remaining aboard the ships for many years equaled millions of gallons...

So, put the fuel recovery job up for a bid; an oil company with a nearby refinery can pump it out and reprocess it; everybody wins!