Save Halkett Bay, a group fighting to keep a destroyer from being sunk in the area, could essentially shut down the Artificial Reef Society of B.C. (ARSBC), according to ARSBC president Howard Robins.
"If they create a problem that forces us not to sink this ship, we're a dead organization," Robins said, explaining his non-profit group has invested all their money in the endeavour. "We're broke."
Andrew Strang of Save Halkett Bay said his group is not trying to shut down the ARSBC, simply trying to stop the sinking in Halkett Bay to save the area from environmental damage. But Strang noted he found Robins' remarks about the ARSBC's financial state alarming.
"It's something we've heard rumours about, but [Robins'] admitting that is just very alarming for a couple of reasons," he said. "Number one, I guess, it's very difficult to understand how a sinking would assist them to get into a better financial situation. We've never understood that they are going to make any money from this, so that kind of concerns me.
"And also they've made promises that they are going to be looking at this and monitoring it and studying it, so who's going to be left holding the bag if this thing is sunk wrong or falls apart or is causing environmental damage and essentially there's a bankrupt organization behind it?"
The ARSBC has been working to sink the 115-metre HMCS Annapolis off Gambier Island since 2009. ARSBC maintains that the ship, once stripped and passed through environmental processes, will create a "complex habitat to support an abundance of marine animals," bringing back vitality to the area, which is characterized by a fine sediment seabed.
But Save Halkett Bay says the plan will have serious environmental impacts such as loss of fish habitat, potential impacts on species at risk and the possible release of toxins from the vessel or any pyrotechnics used to sink it.
Save Halkett Bay has been working to stop the ARSBC sinking by lobbying the provincial government and raising questions around jurisdiction.
Robins said the jurisdiction lies solely with the federal government, but Strang contends jurisdiction is overlapping, with the province responsible for actions within the marine park and the Islands Trust having jurisdiction when it comes to the use and placement of structures on or in the water in the Halkett Bay area.
In March, the province accepted the HMCS Annapolis as a gift from the ARSBC even though the gift was refused just four months earlier by the same government body. The move caused Strang's group to ask for a meeting with the Minister of Environment Terry Lake.
That meeting took place on June 7.
"We believe it's time B.C.'s Minister of the Environment stepped up and overturned the decision of the previous caretaker minister accepting the gift of the Annapolis. It was a deal made in secret and smacked of the kind of insider decision-making process the premier says her government will do differently," Strang said.
At the meeting, Save Halkett Bay asked for a provincial environmental process, rather than a federal one, because they say it is more stringent, but they were given no guarantees.
Robins said the request cannot be granted because the sinking of the Annapolis is under federal jurisdiction.
"It is a federal authority issue. It always has been because Canada deals with all three oceans," Robins said.
While Save Halkett Bay continues to try to find ways to stop the sinking, Robins said his group is prepping the ship to go down, having put in 12,000 hours of volunteer work to prepare the vessel so far.
That prep work includes recycling some metal pieces of the ship, opening up passageways for easy access for divers and stripping the vessel of any potential toxins.
"We've got the majority of the real hard work done, so that's good and now we're just going through detailing it at this point," he said.
The ARSBC has already had one environmental inspection of the Annapolis and Robins expects a few more before the ship passes.
"It usually takes a couple in a complex project there's always a minor this or a minor that, but it's our job to make sure those deficiencies are identified and then taken care of," Robins noted.
He said once the ship passes its final environmental assessment, the ARSBC will be able to sink the ship.
"As everybody knows, the project has been accepted by the province. We have done our due diligence," Robins said. "We have provided all the details and information and government has recognized what we have done in the past. There's nothing missing from the information base that we have provided, so that's why the project has been accepted."
