Tomorrow, the United States launches a Submarine Aircraft Carrier
The sea is in its garbage finery once more. Tomorrow, when the Clemenceau is scheduled to arrive in Brest, the Oriskany, a former American aircraft carrier, will be deliberately sunk. This is to the satisfaction of leisure business, tourists and scuba diving enthusiasts who see in this programmed sinking a new pole of attraction, curiosity and revenue. Diving clubs have already started taking bookings: 145 USD for two, payable in advance.
In Canada and the United States, a lot of mega-bulky waste that no one knows what to do with at the end of their life is thrown into the sea as part of artificial reef programs. Everything goes: Boeings, subway trains, and old cars.
Shipwreck of an aircraft carrier in the United States
The 17th of May 2006, the US Navy will sink 27,000 tons of metal valued at 9.7 million US dollars* with the force of 24 charges of explosives. The Oriskany’s immersion constitutes the first stage of a program, created by the American administration in 2004, specifically designed for the underwater re-usage of surface ships as artificial reefs. This initial venture will take place in the Gulf of Mexico whose waters have been historically contaminated by hydrocarbons, heavy metals, and PCBs and more recently plagued by the effluents of Hurricane Katrina’s natural and industrial disaster in 2005. The hull of the ex-Oriskany contains more than 350 kg of residual PCBs as well as asbestos and toxic paint. Regional dive clubs welcome this ecological disaster. In the long run, the fish attracted by this new trash heap will be subjected to a toxicological follow-up determining whether or not they are harmless in the event of consumption by divers.
Optic 2000
A sacred union made Port 2000, the plural left and the singular right with the assistance of the President of the Republic – who proclaimed in September of 1995 that Port 2000 is “a project of national economic importance and major political interest” – and to the communist Minister of Transportation, the inexhaustible Mr. Gayssot who will not cease to carry budgetary additions on each of his visits to Porte Océane. Only SOS Estuaire and Robin des Bois have grappled with this machine.
The full extent of the risks
Port 2000 will manipulate and stockpile all classes of hazardous materials. The CIM area encompasses 100 meters in the back of the container parks. CIM (Industrial and Maritime Company) has the capacity to stock 5 million tons of oil and is subject to the Seveso directive. To reduce the domino effect between the two installations, in case of industrial accidents, it did not bode well during the initial stages of the project. Then the idea for a slope – measuring 1 to 2 meters long, 60 meters wide at the base, and 17 meters high – was introduced. Experts and third-experts considered it the surest solution concerning the reduction of missile effects and the confinement of toxic and thermal flows. This option would have reduced the availability of container parks by 20%; consequently, this precaution was deemed “unacceptable in regards to the public investment made in other respects to the maritime infrastructure.” The work was surrendered for the profit from two container stacks separated by a corridor measuring 46 meters and functioning as an internal passageway. It was advised that these screen walls be composed of four levels of containers; but the final product consists of only three containers. The structure’s ability to prevent risks is weakened. Example: “Unlike a wall consisting of four containers, a wall of merely three containers does not allow for the containment of zone Z1 (lethal, NDLR) resulting in the escape of chlorinate.” CIM, under pressure from DRIRE (Regional office of Industry, Research, and Environment), dismantled a holding tank of 150,000 tons encrusted in the area of Port 2000. In exchange, CIM negotiated with Port Autonome the prolongation of the concession that expires in 2019.
