Key Largo Chamber of Commerce Spiegel Grove Update:

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Spiegel Grove Update:
FORMER NAVY SHIP, SPIEGEL GROVE, TO BECOME KEYS NEWEST ARTIFICIAL REEF LATER THIS YEAR
Story and Photos by Andy Newman

Tugboats ease the Spiegel Grove out of her resting place for more than 10 years at the James River Reserve Fleet. Photo by Andy Newman/Florida Keys TDC

NORFOLK, Va. - A decommissioned Navy ship that is set to be sunk off the Florida Keys as an artificial reef is in a Chesapeake, Va., shipyard being cleansed and made dive-ready.

The six-year effort to acquire the Spiegel Grove, a 510-foot Landing Ship Dock, (LSD) was fraught with red tape, bureaucracy and delays as Key Largo dive industry officials attempted to convince federal, state and local officials that the project is environmentally sound.

But finally the green light was given and on June 13 three tugboats pulled the 46-year-old ship from its resting place for the last 11 years. Known locally as the "ghost fleet," the James River Reserve Fleet harbors more than 100 retired and rusting ships that are waiting for disposal.

"Exhilaration is an understatement," said Spencer Slate, chairman of the Key Largo Chamber of Commerce Artificial Reef Committee. "I never imagined that it would have taken six years, but now the end is in sight."

David Tomlinson of Ocean Reefs Inc., the cleanup and make-ready coordinating contractor, estimates that workers will need three months to cleanse the vessel of all contaminants and make it diver-friendly. Once prepared, the Spiegel Grove is to be to towed to Key Largo where she is to be submerged about 5.5 miles offshore within the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. Plans are for the ship to be situated in 124 feet of water near Dixie Shoals, with the top of the superstructure approximately 40 feet below the surface of the water.

Photojournalist Lynn Seldon of Richmond, Va., right, directs Spencer Slate of Key Largo, Fla., as he walks in the "well deck" of the retired Navy ship Spiegel Grove. Photo by Andy Newman/Florida Keys TDC

The United States Maritime Administration provided the ship at no cost, but environmental impact studies, the cleansing process and towing to Key Largo will cost about $400,000, according to Slate. The Monroe County Tourist Development Council (TDC) committed $268,000 in community enhancement funds to the project with the balance coming from previously held fund-raising events. More than a 100 retired vessels are rafted together in the James River, just off of Fort Eustis, and 83 other ships are prime candidates for artificial reef projects, said Michael Bagley, superintendent of the James River Reserve Fleet.

"I think it's (using retired ships for artificial reefs) a hell of a deal for all parties concerned," Bagley said. "It takes the liability off of our hands and saves the taxpayers money."

Bagley said that each decommissioned ship costs $20,000 a year to maintain and an average of $1.6 million is expended to send a derelict ship to the scrapyard.

"Why should we pay to cut them up and put them in a steel mill?" he said. "When they are cleaned in an environmentally sensitive manner and sunk as an artificial reef, they provide new homes for fish and a great monetary benefit for the community."

Doug Crowder, a project supervisor, sweeps away paint chips to reveal the official mascot logo emblazoned on the floor of a hallway on the Spiegel Grove. Photo by Andy Newman/Florida Keys TDC

Slate expects that the Spiegel Grove will attract 60,000 to 70,000 divers a year resulting in a direct economic impact of at least $10 million for the Key Largo tourism economy.

Named for the Fremont, Ohio, estate of the late U.S. President Rutherford B. Hayes, the steel, steam turbine-powered Spiegel Grove was launched in 1955 as a LSD designed to transport landing craft that carried combat troops to shore.

In 1956, she sailed from Norfolk, Va., to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and later that year participated in the amphibious exercises that would ultimately comprise the greatest part of her active service.

In the Spiegel Grove's active lifetime, she toured the Mediterranean with the U.S. Marines, transported Army troops to Labrador, Canada, and participated in operations along the East Coast and in the Caribbean. For her services, she was awarded four Navy Expeditionary medals, a National Defense Service medal, six Armed Forces Expeditionary medals and a Humanitarian Service medal.

The vessel last saw active duty as part of the Atlantic Fleet in 1974 and was officially decommissioned in 1989.

The Spiegel Grove is not the only navy ship being planned for artificial reef status off the Florida Keys.

A contingent of Key West dive industry members are working diligently to acquire the USS Vandenberg, a 520-foot decommissioned United States Air Force missile-tracking vessel that served in the "Cold War" and as a support vessel for early NASA programs.

Project coordinator Joe Weatherby, of Artificial Reefs of the Keys, hopes the Vandenberg will be sunk sometime in the summer of 2002, in 140 feet of water off Key West. Some $250,000 in TDC funding has been approved by the council's Key West district.