Tim Naumetz For CanWest News Service Wednesday, April 04, 2007
The Federal Environment Department has approved a navy plan to haul retired destroyer HMCS Huron from CFB Esquimalt out to the Pacific Ocean, where U.S. and Canadian ships and jets will use it as target practice until it sinks two kilometres to the ocean floor.
It's a plan environmentalists and one NDP MP say is fraught with problems.
"It's treating the ocean like a garbage dump," said Jennifer Lash, the head of the B.C. activist group Living Oceans.
"No one even knows what kind of marine life there is down there."
Canadian Forces public relations officers were surprised by a barrage of questions yesterday, following the government's publication last weekend of an Environment Canada permit for the long-planned disposal of the Huron.
If all goes as expected, the Iroquois-class destroyer, stripped down to 1,118 metric tonnes of raw steel but still longer than a football field, will succumb to a barrage of missiles, machine-guns, naval cannons and torpedoes in a joint U.S.-Canadian exercise off the B.C. coast next month.
The plan is for the bullet-riddled torn-up hulk of the Huron to sink about 100 kilometres west of Vancouver Island.
"This, as far as I know, is the first Canadian warship that we've sunk in that manner," said Cmdr. Jeff Agnew, head of navy public relations, who noted the practice has been common with other navies for decades.
The Huron, commissioned in 1972, served on blockade patrols during the 1991Gulf War, intercepted illegal Chinese immigrants in 1999 and was decommissioned in 2005 to furnish spare parts to the remaining three Iroquois-class destroyers.
The Environment Department permit appears to set stringent anti-pollution requirements for the event, to the point of listing the ordnance the military will use.
The attack must take place in weather conditions that allow proper positioning of the Huron, the timing must be outside the opening of any commercial fishery and the navy must ensure "all floatables and all petroleum-based products (fuel oil, hydraulic fluids, lubricants, etc.,) are removed from the vessel prior to disposal."
The permit says the route from Canadian Forces Base Esquimalt to the target site in a Canadian military firing area must be "direct."
The method of disposal is listed as: "Firing by naval Sea Sparrow missiles, aircraft machine-guns and naval gunnery (including MK 48 torpedoes)."
Agnew said the missiles and torpedoes that hit the Huron will contain no radioactive material and the ordnance will leave only "background levels" of lead on the ocean bottom.
However, Lash, Green party Leader Elizabeth May and NDP environment critic Nathan Cullen all say that sinking a massive steel ship in the ocean sends the wrong signal in this environmentally sensitive era.
"People don't just drive their car off a cliff into the lake when they're done with it," said Cullen.
Added May: "It's crazy, we've just had the kerfuffle over U.S. navy live-fire exercises in the Great Lakes."
May was referring to a U.S. Coast Guard proposal for live-fire exercises on the lakes, which was withdrawn after opposition from groups concerned about the impact on commercial shipping, recreational boating and the environment.
. Although I never served on Huron, as she was already referred to as building D281 by the time I hit the fleet. I hope they get good footage of the Mk 48 finishing her off - furthermore interesting choice on using Sea Sparrows in surface mode. Although throwing rocks would probably more effective. I guess the brass wants to use up all their stock of the old missile before ESSM hits the west coast.
