The former Navy hospital ship USS Sanctuary,
which served in the aftermath of World War II and in
Vietnam, has been sold and is now under tow from Baltimore to
Brownsville, Texas, for recycling.
The move marks the end of a 22-year
residence in Baltimore Harbor that was troubled by
deterioration, failed business ventures and lawsuits. The Sanctuary left
the harbor Wednesday. Two suits are still pending. But the
529-foot ship's former
owner Potomac Navigation, Inc. is in
settlement talks with the U.S. Maritime Administration and
the Environmental Protection Agency.
For the Port of Baltimore, the newly emptied
space at Berth 5 in the North Locust Point Terminal is a new
business opportunity.
"It's very good progress for us. We haven't
been able to market that berth because we didn't know when
it would become available," said Richard Scher, spokesman
for the Maryland Port Administration. "We look forward to
new business and certainly new days ahead for that berth."
Lawrence J. Kahn, the attorney for Potomac
Navigation, said the company is disappointed it was
prevented from using the ship as it was originally intended as an
"accommodations platform" and storage facility for port
expansion workers in the United Arab Emirates.
But on "the bright side," he added, "the
vessel is no longer a burden on the Port of Baltimore, and
is going to be properly and legally recycled such that the metals and
other valuable parts of the vessel will be able to be
reused, and the toxins will be properly disposed of by the buyer."
The Sanctuary has been tested and found to
contain dangerous levels of polychlorinated biphenyls, or
PCBs, carcinogenic chemicals used extensively in ships of that
era.
The buyer, ESCO Marine Inc., in Brownsville,
has agreed to recycle the Sanctuary in accord with "all
applicable environmental laws and regulations
under
the resource Conservation and Recovery Act."
The work will be done under the oversight of
the Texas Commission of Environmental Quality, the EPA, the
Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the
Maritime Administration.
"We believe this is a positive outcome for
the environment, and the public, and in line with the health
safeguards of the Toxic Substances Control Act," said Wyn Hornbuckle,
a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Justice. He also
confirmed that "settlement negotiations are ongoing" on the
remaining lawsuits, but declined to comment further.
The USS Sanctuary was built in 1944 at the
Sun Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Co. in Chester, Pa. It was
commissioned on June 20, 1945, and sailed for Pearl Harbor.
It arrived four days after the Japanese surrender in August.
It then sailed to Wakayama, Japan, and helped to care for and
repatriate 1,139 prisoners of war, mostly from Britain,
Australia and Java.
Hundreds more patients and passengers
military and civilians were taken on board and repatriated
in late 1945 and 1946.
Decommissioned in 1946, the Sanctuary was
idle for 20 years. Then, in 1966, it was refitted with
updated medical gear and sent to the coast of South Vietnam in April
1967, according to the Naval Historical Center.
By the end of its first year at Da Nang, the
Sanctuary's staff had admitted 5,354 patients and seen 9,187
outpatients. Jim Beaty, of Memphis, Tenn., served on the
Sanctuary in Vietnam. "Memories, mostly pleasant, but some
horrifyingly unpleasant, will fill my mind and soul
forever," he said via email after learning of the ship's
fate. "Aboard Sanctuary, lives were saved, disease was fought, and those
that served and those that were treated, should always be
gratified."
J. Kevin Culley, served as a radioman 3rd
Class from 1967 to 1969. He lives in Rhode Island now, and
remembers Sanctuary as a place of "extraordinary
people who did extraordinary things."
"Often that help pad was a confused site of
deck crew, corpsmen, wounded and pilots. Lots of noise, lots
of tension, but all knew their tasks and never flinched even
when chaos seemed to prevail."
Michael Newton was a 21-year-old Marine
rifleman when he was wounded and flown to Sanctuary for
multiple surgeries on shrapnel wounds.
"The care aboard U.S.S. Sanctuary was great;
the doctors, nurses, and corpsmen, couldn't have been kinder
and more skilled," he said in a message to The Sun.
"I think about those highly charged days often, even after
all these years."
Decommissioned again in 1975, the Sanctuary
was idle until 1989, when a charitable group bought it from
the Navy for $10 and brought it to Baltimore for use as a
medical training facility.
When that venture failed, the ship was
acquired by another group, called Project Life, for service
as a drug treatment center.
In 2001, the Port of Baltimore signed an
agreement with Project Life allowing the ship to remain
berthed at Locust Point. But the project failed, the lease expired in 2006, and the
ship was abandoned.
