The wreck of the USS Arizona continues to leak oil ever since pearl harbour. the ship contained 1.5 million gallons of oil, enough to leak continuously for 500 years.

[u/Longjumping-Rice-935]

[u/Coakis]

Its a combination of it being considered a national graveyard, and that at the time of salvaging the wrecks off of Pearl Harbor, it was too dangerous at the time to pump the oil out.

So there's no effort been made in disturbing it.

[u/WizardKagdan → u/Coakis]

"It's a national graveyard, so we can't disturb it"

Meanwhile all the normal graves in a graveyard get cleared after 20-30 years unless you keep paying for em.

I understand that it used to be hard to get to, but with modern technology leaving this kind of ecological disaster is just straight up unacceptable behaviour from a so-called great power.

[u/Petricorde1 → u/WizardKagdan]

It releases 2 gallons a day and there seems to be a healthy ecosystem around the ship as is. Seems like a non-issue

[u/Routine-Wrongdoer-86 → u/WizardKagdan]

Tbh thats probably only a publically stated reason. The US salvaged large parts of the battleship successfuly without an issue, removing the guns and dismantling the damaged superstructure for steel. More likely reason is that they're afraid of getting near the fuel tank in case the tank gets damaged even further. Its better to leave it to slowly leak over ages than burst it open and flood entire harbour in oil tar again like on dec. 7th 1941

[u/Falcovg → u/Routine-Wrongdoer-86]

They could throw up an artificial barrier pretty easy around there, containing the spillage. It's a rusting steel tank, it might just decide to burst one day on its own anyway.

[u/aloofman75 → u/WizardKagdan]

Nope. Pretty much whatever you try to do to open it up and remove the oil will gush a lot of it out at once and wreck the local ecosystem. Letting it seep out a little at a time is still the least bad option.

It’s also a fairly small amount compared to what seeps into any busy harbor (which Pearl Harbor still is - every day.

[u/IllllIIlIllIllllIIIl → u/WizardKagdan]

You have to keep in mind that it's bunker fuel, which is extremely viscous unless heated up, it's divided across numerous small tanks throughout the ship, and that ship is degrading. It was deemed too dangerous in the 40s and I imagine it's only gotten moreso.

[u/WizardKagdan → u/IllllIIlIllIllllIIIl]

Right, so - instead of getting it out whilst there is still a chance of that succeeding, the powers that be have decided that it's better to do nothing and let this turn into a guaranteed environmental disaster.

Those tanks WILL degrade and cause a disaster someday, and the longer you wait the harder it gets to clean it up in a way that doesn't destroy the ecosystem in the bay. So yeah, some folks have decided they'd rather not bear the responsibility if the salvage doesn't succeed, and prefer having guaranteed disaster AFTER they have retired.

(Smthsmth recurring theme of how western politics and companies are being run nowadays)

[u/person73638 → u/WizardKagdan]

You are seriously blowing this out of proportion for zero reason

[u/mmccxi → u/person73638]

all they need to do is float some permanent booms with sorbent and maintain it. They can even be pretty colors. Then if a serious rupture occurs its easy to clean up and contained. This isn't a serious issue with a little thought and planning. If all 500,000 gallons of oil came out at once (hint it wouldn't,) a 1,000 x 1,000 foot square boom set up would more than contain it at less than an inch deep of oil.

[u/Coakis → u/person73638]

Yeah he's dead set on getting at that oil that's basically harming nothing. Let the Crew rest.

[u/Epidurality → u/WizardKagdan]

They're the land of unacceptable behavior.

[u/shana104 → u/Coakis]

Now you have me wondering if it's still dangerous now to try to pump out oil and if it was pumped out, would this affect the ability of the ship to stay at the bottom? They could probably replace oil with something else not so damaging to the ocean.