There’s an interesting twist to the ongoing Annapolis saga.
It seems a California reef society is all ready to buy, clean and tow the decommissioned 1960s destroyer to San Diego to add it to a marine park there.
California Ships To Reefs (CSTR), located in Wheatland, California, north of Sacramento, already has a resolution passed by its city council to sink the ship in the San Diego Underwater Recreation Area in Mission Bay, according to Eleanor Rewerts of CSTR.
Meanwhile in Vancouver, the fate of the Annapolis is being decided by a federal court in a case between Environment Canada and the Save Halkett Bay Marine Society. The society argues the government should never have granted the Artificial Reef Society of British Columbia (ARSBC) a disposal at sea permit to sink the ship in Halkett Bay.
There is a second legal issue that is ongoing in the background that relates to Wesley Roots of W.R. Marine Services, the company that supplied the ARSBC with the funding to pay for the Annapolis's moorage fees and many operational services over the past 20 years, according to Roots.
An “arrest” – like a lien on a car – of the ship over money Roots said was owed his company by ARSBC was lifted in November, but Roots has a pending appeal of that decision.
“My lawyer is waiting to see what is going to happen with the current court case with the Halkett Bay people and that will determine which we go in terms of an appeal,” said Roots.
Rewerts said if her California group gets possession of the ship – the sale could be ordered by the judge in Roots’ appeal case – they would strip all the paint off the hull of the ship, tow it to California and sink it.
Rewerts said it would be no problem to prepare the 110-metre ship, which currently bobbing in the sea with holes cut in it in preparation for sinking at Long Bay off of Gambier Island.
“We would have to cover the holes they have cut in the exterior and seal those up with steel plates and then clean the hull,” she said.
The toxins in the paint that are the basis of the Save Halkett Bay Marine Society’s argument in federal court are not an issue, she said, because legally the ship has to be completely scraped clean before it can enter waters in the United States, regardless, she said.
There is no word on when the judge will make a decision on the Environment Canada and Save Halkett Bay Marine Society’s case.
