A federal lawsuit is challenging plans to sink the SS United States off the Florida panhandle to create an artificial reef.
The historic SS United States ocean liner is scheduled to be sunk in the Gulf waters off of Okaloosa County this week in the Florida panhandle after a federal judge rejected a preservation group’s request to keep the boat afloat.
Judge M. Casey Rodgers of the Northern District of Florida rejected the SS United States Preservation Foundation’s request for a temporary restraining order (TRO) on Nov. 11. Rodgers cited the failure of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit against Okaloosa County and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to secure a security bond to protect the county against potential monetary losses if the TRO were issued.
The SS United States, an ocean liner that set a transatlantic speed record in 1952 and is listed on National Register of Historic Places, is now being towed from Mobile, Ala., to the Florida panhandle, where the ship is on schedule to be sunk on Wednesday about 22 nautical miles southwest of Destin East Pass.
The 990-feet-long vessel’s use as an artificial reef has been approved by the Corps of Engineers. But the lawsuit filed by preservation advocates argues that the permit approval failed to consider environmental risks to marine life or follow historic preservation rules.
In his order last week, Rodgers concluded that the county could be burdened by excessive costs if a restraining order were put in place during the course of the litigation.
“... Should the court issue a TRO and then perhaps a preliminary injunction, the taxpayers of Okaloosa County will no doubt incur .. substantial expense and likely considerably more for storing, protecting and maintaining the ship while litigation proceeds, and this is no small matter,” she said. “Indeed, an order requiring the additional agency action that plaintiffs request could amount to a prolonged delay at exorbitant costs to the county and the taxpayers.”
The plaintiffs argued that the security bond requirement should have been waived because of the nonprofit status of the foundation and because the legal action was in the public interest since it could prevent environmental harms.
The foundation did not respond to a request for comment about its next legal moves, and the Corps of Engineers said it would not comment on litigation matters.
In their complaint filed on Nov. 3, the plaintiffs argue that the Corps of Engineers erred in approving the sinking by failing to prepare an environmental impact statement. The ship’s construction decades ago required about 59,000 pounds of hexavalent chromium coatings, according to Dr. Todd Osborne of the University of Florida, and this substance poses health risks to sea life and, in turn, humans who may consume seafood in the future.
In addition, the Corps conducted an incomplete overview of the ship’s historic preservation status, the lawsuit states. Preservation advocates say the Corps’ approval of the artificial reef project failed to comply with either the National Environmental Policy Act or the National Historic Preservation Act.
“During Veterans Day commemorations, Okaloosa County intends to deliberately sink an American flagship named United States, built by the hands of World War II veterans and American shipbuilders from the Greatest Generation,” Carlos Camacho Jr. the foundation’s co-founder and spokesman, said in a statement. “There is something profoundly tone-deaf about honoring veterans one day and sinking what they built the next.”
The foundation has suggested that instead of sinking the SS United States, it could use an SL-7 fast sealift ship to create an artificial reef that would be the largest in the world. This would allow for the SS United States to be preserved so that future generations could see one of the products of 20th-century American engineering and innovation, according to preservation advocates.
