Disposal Options for Ships
Abstract
The U.S. Navy and the U.S. Maritime Administration (MARAD) together preside over a fleet of some 450 retired naval vessels and merchant ships that grows each month as ship retirements continue. Some of these ships will find their way into the navies of U.S. allies and friendly nations, others will be sold or donated to interested parties, and some will be consumed in live-fire military exercises known as sinking exercises, or SINKEX. Those that remain, about 358 ships, will require some other form of disposal over the next 20 years. Those 358 ships were the focus of our study. We evaluated four options for how the Navy and MARAD might proceed: long-term storage, domestic recycling (ship dismantlement in U.S. naval or commercial shipyards), overseas recycling, and "reefing"-i.e., the sinking of a ship(s) to create an artificial reef for a marine habitat or as a site for recreational divers. Of these four, only the last three are truly ship-disposal options. Long-term storage, which defers the decision of how to dispose of the ships until some later date, was included to show the consequences of taking no action.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 2001
- Accession Number
- ADA393725
Entities
People
- Denis Rushworth
- John E. Peters
- Michael V. Hynes
- Ronald W. Hess
Organizations
- RAND Corporation