How do you “own” a shipwreck that occurred 46 years ago and was buried under sand until 16 years ago? Gee, can I buy the USS Arizona? Will I then be responsible for cleaning up the oil from it?
The article could have been a little more clear. The S.S. Catala referenced in the paragraph above was the one that sank in 1965 and was cleaned up in 2006.
Salvage rights.
“How do you “own” a shipwreck that occurred 46 years ago and was buried under sand until 16 years ago? Gee, can I buy the USS Arizona? Will I then be responsible for cleaning up the oil from it?”
More environmental extremism. If every drop of oil leaked at once, its harm would be unnoticeable six months from now. Thousands of torpedoed tankers burned and sank in WWII releasing billions of barrels; net effect, unnoticed only months later. The cost of vaporizing the ship with explosives would be negligible. But the money gained by contractors to damn it, dismember it, is obscene and the entire reason for doing it the “environmentally safe way.”