A United States minesweeper ship that crashed into a coral reef due to inaccurate Navy maps will have to be cut into small pieces and removed in order to prevent harming the ocean’s ecosystem, according to the Navy and other reports.
The $277 million USS Guardian, a Naval warship that clears waterways of mines, crashed into a coral reef near the Philippines earlier this month.
The Navy will disassemble it piece by piece in order to avoid damaging the reef rather than tow the multi-million dollar ship off of the reef and perform necessary repairs.
h/t Adrian
Okay. Several millions of dollars(after graft and pay backs) to gut and cut the ship,versues 100 bucks for an up to date map.Yup.The Chimp in Chief’s monetery plans are working just ducky.
“Boneheaded decision making on the way into the reef and boneheaded decision making on the way out,” said the source, who requested anonymity so as not to be seen criticizing the Navy. “It’s amazing how we can find ways to spend more money we don’t have on the eve of sequestration.”
It sounds like a pretty good appraisal of the situation. By the time this is over,the $277 million ship will have cost at least another $50 million to dismantle and haul away,so for $327 million the U.S. Navy will have several tons of scrap metal.
This is hard to imagine in an administration led by a man with such a sterling military career before he entered politics.
Or am I thinking of one of his opponenets? 😉
I’m thinking of the old joke about the U.S. aircraft carrier warning people to move out of the way. After three attempts the skipper is informed that what’s in his way is a Canadian lighthouse. Yup! well trained those boys.
Most of the Administration is made up of career politicians who have hardly worked a manual job ever in their lives. They have relied on the money of rich estates to further their educations or have always had access to loans (other people’s money).
They don’t have a problem spending money that they have never worked for. Money has been something which is a bunch of numbers on a ledger, or just made a phone call to see how much money is in the account.
Add to that now, the EPA and environmental groups which scream bloody murder every time a piece of plankton dies without natural cause, and the politika being so thin skinned that making a decision which will damage some coral could be, in their minds, a career ending one.
The beauty in coral is that it will grow back. Not the same shape or same way, but it will come back.
Political careers…not so easy.
Scraped some algae from a rock the last time I took out my Sea Eagle inflatable kayak. Will have to toss is in the trash now, I guess.
Silly people. All they have to do is wait for Global Warming to cause the sea level to rise, and it will float free on its own.
The location is one of the most pristine and most valued marine coral reef ecosystems in the world. It is by far the best location for scuba diving in the Philippines, and most likely the most treasured national park in that country.
How the heck the bonehead ship captain managed to run aground at this location is unbelievable. It’s like crashing an 18 wheeler into Old Faithful at Yosemite.
i don’t know which is more stupid, the capt. grounding the ship or those who think cutting it up will be less disruption than towing it off. does anyone realize the massive amount of equipment that will be necessary to cut up the ship??? i doubt they really do, otherwise they would busy pulling the ship off the reef.
Ship is 23 years old, made of wood and fiberglass, sitting on a reef grinding away for a week or so, 24hrs a day. I suspect they have looked at repair costs and figured that it’s not worth it. Likely their PR people used it as method to show the Philippines that the US cares about their relationship, which is far more worthwhile than the ship itself.
Shhhhhhh old white guy. It sounds better to the eco-cultists to cut it up(creating God only knows how much more damage)then simply pulling it off the reef,with a few more scratches. Sheesh.You are talking sense.Get with the pogra…er….program.
If they’re going to throw away an otherwise useful vessel, wouldn’t it be cheaper just to scuttle the ship and allow it to become an extension of the reef?
Running aground is an automatic relieving of command and court martial in the U.S. Navy, so the skipper is for the high jump anyway. Blaming the map may be his lawyer’s way of minimizing the career damage.
Regarding the ship itself, replacement would require capital acquisition money, tkttcy cutting it up would come out of ‘operations and maintenance’ – a different package that does not require political approval. This is likely part of the decision process.
Will the US military really be all that difficult to defeat when the time comes?
“The military is a system devised by very intelligent, well educated men for execution by a bunch of yokels.”
The yokels are in charge now.
This is just an opportunity to implement another agenda item of the radical left – destroy the ability of the US to defend itself.
The Navy has very few minesweepers, and can not operate in waters like the Persian Gulf without a full complement of anti-mine assets, of which this ship is the most capable, and does a job that anti- mine helicopters can’t.
The so-called environmental threat is a cover story to hide the ulterior motive of destroying the striking power of the Navy.
If the reef wasn’t on the charts it can only mean one thing: it’s a new reef!
Praise be to Suzuki, Gore, ‘bama and Soros. The healing has started!