The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and a Texas company are making plans for the shipbreaking of the STURGIS barge.
The Army Corps in May issued a $1.9 million contract to International Shipbreaking Ltd., which is expected in September to tow the formerly nuclear reactor-equipped vessel to its facility in Brownsville.
“We are currently working with ISL to make the vessel ready to tow (seaworthy); we are working on a towing plan; and ISL is working on a specific work plan to implement the dismantlement of the vessel upon arrival in Brownsville,” Brenda Barber, project manager for the Army Corps’ Environmental and Munitions Design Center in Baltimore, said by email. “Once in Brownsville, ISL is estimating a timeframe of 6-8 months to complete the dismantlement and recycling.”
The former World War II Liberty Ship, later fitted with a nuclear power reactor for service in Panama in the 1960s to 1970s, underwent three years of decommissioning at the Port of Galveston. The project cost over $66.5 million and included removal of the reactor and other radioactively contaminated material from the barge.
Contracctor APTIM Federal Services is conducting the final radiological release surveys and some last decontamination, which Barber said is standard in such a cleanup project.
It is expected to take three to four days to tow the vessel 400 nautical miles to Brownsville. That will be followed by two to three months of abatement of asbestos, lead-based paints, and other hazards, after which the barge will be cut up and processed for recycling.
“At the end of the dismantlement, we will be issued certificates of destruction (this documents the recycling) or certificates of disposal (for abatement wastes) which will serves as documentation of complete dismantlement,” Barber wrote.
