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USS Arizona issues
Dec. 7th, 2006 10:31 amMy friend Justin sent me this link
One Last Mission for Ship Sunk in Pearl Harbor Attack
[summary: The USS Arizona, a US battleship sunk by the Japanese in the attack on pear Harbor in 1941, is still filled with toxic fuel oil, which slowly leaks out and may some day erupt into a massive spill when the ship loses structural integrity. The National Park Service (NPS) is trying to model how that will happen, but is making no effort to actually figure out how to remove the fuel oil.]
"The overall project goal is to model and characterize the deterioration processes . . . to predict when we may have potential structural collapse," said Matthew A. Russell, project director. It is impossible to remove the oil from the ship because that would disturb what he said
is "an enormous tomb."
Justin's comment: "This seems insane to me."
I agree that is an incredibly stupid thing for the NPS guy to say, and a foolish attitude for the NPS to take.
What *is* an issue is that given whatever corrosion has taken place, pumping the oil out without rupturing it's current containment, and replacing it with something nontoxic that will have the same or greater specific gravity (so the ship doesn't start shifting) will be incredibly tricky. But it's (IMO) the only responsible thing to do.
One Last Mission for Ship Sunk in Pearl Harbor Attack
[summary: The USS Arizona, a US battleship sunk by the Japanese in the attack on pear Harbor in 1941, is still filled with toxic fuel oil, which slowly leaks out and may some day erupt into a massive spill when the ship loses structural integrity. The National Park Service (NPS) is trying to model how that will happen, but is making no effort to actually figure out how to remove the fuel oil.]
"The overall project goal is to model and characterize the deterioration processes . . . to predict when we may have potential structural collapse," said Matthew A. Russell, project director. It is impossible to remove the oil from the ship because that would disturb what he said
is "an enormous tomb."
Justin's comment: "This seems insane to me."
I agree that is an incredibly stupid thing for the NPS guy to say, and a foolish attitude for the NPS to take.
What *is* an issue is that given whatever corrosion has taken place, pumping the oil out without rupturing it's current containment, and replacing it with something nontoxic that will have the same or greater specific gravity (so the ship doesn't start shifting) will be incredibly tricky. But it's (IMO) the only responsible thing to do.
