Dear Editor:
Re: Artificial Reef Expedition Planned, Aug. 19 news story.
Sinking decaying ships to the ocean floor is not a solution to B.C.’s problem of derelict vessels. To seriously suggest this underscores a lack of understanding about the long-term impacts that sunken ships can have on our oceans.
Georgia Strait Alliance’s primary concern with artificial reefs over the years has been the assumption that they cause no harm and, therefore, are good for our oceans. These assumptions are based on casual observation that lack any rigorous, long-term scientific study. In fact, there’s an absence of long-term scientific monitoring of ships and planes that have been submerged in the strait — and this is a serious flaw.
Scientific study must begin somewhere, and a qualitative visual survey can provide a first step, but it certainly cannot offer a comprehensive understanding nor lead to conclusions that everything is fine. It cannot measure the contaminants that are being released into the marine environment as these are largely invisible to the human eye, and it does nothing to address the cumulative impacts of having man-made garbage thrust into a natural and healthy ecosystem.
To continue to sink derelict vessels because artificial reefs are a “boon to biodiversity” is a reckless goal — the presence of life doesn’t mean all is well as we know from the sea floor around Victoria’s sewage outfalls.
This type of vague statement favours unfounded and cursory assumptions instead of ensuring boats and ships be recovered or recycled, never finding their way to our ocean floors.
Christianne Wilhelmson executive director
Georgia Strait Alliance
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