HMCS Annapolis sunk off Gambier Island
The former Canadian war vessel went down off of Gambier Island, sunk by its owners, the Artificial Reef Society of B.C. (ARSBC). There were onlookers in boats and on shore and the event was streamed live on the internet.
Charges were planted upon the hull and set off at 1:30 p.m. and the ship slipped quickly and quietly into the waters and within 3 minutes had disappeared from view.
It is the eighth artificial reef in B.C. waters and the ARSBC has been trying to sink the Annapolis almost since buying it from the government in 2008. After a lengthy legal battle they were granted the Disposal at Sea licence from the province’s Minister of the Environment and intended to sink the ship on January 17.
The ARSBC reported that they cleaned off all hazardous materials from inside and outside the ship, using upwards of 1,000 volunteers to do so. In total about 250 tons of material was taken off, much of it recycled. Howie Robbins, president of the ARSBC said that all federal regulations were strictly followed and met.
Despite that, a group called the Save Halkett Bay Marine Park Society, made up of Gambier Island landowners, opposed the sinking and the two sides met in court on a number of occasions. That group claimed the anti-fouling paint on the hull contains a toxic chemical that was not entirely removed. They won a final federal court date and the January sinking was cancelled.
Each side spent more money and a court again took up the case but in March the federal court ruled in favor of the sinking. Justice Paul Crompton ruled that any of the anti-fouling paint left was no longer active and therefore not an environmental concern.
Court rules in favor of Reef Society
Launched in 1963, commissioned the following year and decommissioned in 1996, the HMCS Annapolis served with the Maritime Forces Atlantic and Maritime Forces Pacific. She spent time as a training ship and was the first warship fitted with a towed array sonar system. In 1990 the Annapolis became the first Canadian Navy ship to sail with a mixed-gender crew.
Other artificial reefs the society has sunk include a Boeing 737 passenger jet – they are the first to create a reef from a passenger jret – a coastal freighter, a World War II merchant marine ship and four warships.
As the Bowen Island Undercurrent noted in a story in January, Robbins believes the success as a reef the coastal freighter they sank in 1991, the G.B. Church, has had is the kind of success the HMCS Annapolis will have.
According to the ARSBC the GB Church, built in England in 1943 and sunk in waters near Sydney, B.C. by the society, has over 150 species inhabiting it. The ship “was quickly overcome with rich marine life including octopus and wolf eels and today is testimonial to the positive environmental impact that artificial reefs have on the marine ecosystem.”
Robbins told the Undercurrent that the reason they are consistently given the green light by the government in B.C. to create artificial reefs is that what they are doing is a positive for the environment.
“We have been permitted eight times in a row because what we produce is net gain underwater,” he said at the time. “Five-hundred thousand mussels on the bottom hull of the Annapolis can’t all be wrong.
“This is not throwing garbage in the ocean, this is re-purposing a vessel to bring marine habitat. The Society works within the framework of the law. If there are standards brought about by Federal Agencies, we meet them.”
The ship will be available for divers to explore.
