TEXAS CLIPPER Departs MARAD Fleet in Beaumont to Become Artificial Reef

After ten years of languishing in the US Maritime Administration’s Beaumont Reserve Fleet, the 473-foot TEXAS CLIPPER has departed the port of Beaumont, Texas under tow. The trip represents the first step in a process which will eventually lead to its final disposition as an artificial reef in the Gulf of Mexico. The vessel is the second vessel to depart from the US Maritime Administration’s Beaumont Reserve Fleet for the purpose of creating an artificial reef in the recent past. Earlier this year, the USS ORISKANY, a decommissioned naval aircraft carrier, was sunk off the Florida panhandle for the same purpose.

As the former training vessel for the Texas A&M University at Galveston, the vessel was the platform for the training of countless merchant mariners over the years. Before that, it saw service as a WWII troop carrier. At Brownsville, Texas, the vessel will be cleaned of all toxic hazards and readied for its final fate as an artificial reef some 17 miles off the coast of Texas. The vessel’s trip to its final resting place could happen as soon as the first quarter of 2007.

It is hoped that the new artificial reef will promote the underwater diving economy and benefit marine life, the U.S. Department of Transportation announced last week. The US Maritime Administration has been tasked with disposing of the obsolete vessels moored at three National Defense Reserve Fleet (NDRF) sites located in the James River in Virginia, at Suisun Bay in California, and in Beaumont, TX.

Creating artificial reefs out of these old hulls has recently become popular, although it faces significant challenges from environmentalists and others concerned about toxins leaching out of the hulls after they are sunk. The cost of preparing the hulls for eventual reefing is also prohibitive, sometimes reaching $5 million or more, depending on the vessel’s purpose in its former life. The ultimate cost of preparing and reefing the TEXAS CLIPPER has been put at about $3.9 million, some of which will come from MARAD.

Recently, the U.S. Navy, the Maritime Administration and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have been working with a host of groups to locate appropriate vessels for the program and to figure out ways to pay for reefing, as well as to ensure that the job is done safely, and in an environmentally-friendly fashion. This week, advocates for another old vessel, the former USNS HOYT S. VANDENBERG, finally got the funding they need to reef that vessel off of the Florida Keys. The VANDENBERG is presently moored in MARAD’s James River fleet.