"An opportunity of this size doesn't come along every day," he said Monday during a tour of the ex-Radford. "This would be a prime site for black sea bass, tautog, summer flounder and lobsters. Something this big is going to draw in some bigger fish, too -- amberjack, dolphin, wahoo and tuna."
Chris Dollar, a member of the reef initiative steering committee on the tour, also was impressed: "In the Chesapeake and along the Atlantic coast, fishermen know that the thing that's limiting their success oftentimes is [a lack of] habitat. This is an awesome opportunity for habitat in the ocean, particularly for those folks coming out of Ocean City. ...We've got to jump on it and take advantage of it."
The USS Arthur W. Radford was launched in 1975 and commissioned in 1977. Among its many assignments, the destroyer was deployed to the Persian Gulf to do picket duty and surveillance work and also to the Mediterranean Sea to support NATO peace-keeping operations.
In 1997, it collided with a Saudi cargo ship 25 miles off the coast of Virginia. Although it took on water through a gash in its bow, the Radford limped to port for repairs.
Twenty-eight years after its launch, the destroyer was decommissioned and lent to Northrup Grumman Ship Systems for design experiments.
Now, the well-worn ship sits on the outside of a three-ship stack tied to the shipyard dock. The number on the bow -- 968 -- is faded. The paint around the battle ribbons on its bridge is peeling, and the deck is rusted and pitted.
A project this size is fairly ambitious for Maryland, which has been in the reef building business for not quite two years. All of its projects so far have involved moving almost 60,000 tons of construction material from the Woodrow Wilson Bridge down the Potomac River to selected Chesapeake Bay sites.
"It sounded daunting," Gary said. "It wound up [costing] almost $1.4 million, which we raised from the private sector, and the great news is some of those donors ... have pledged to stay engaged in an ongoing basis and help us network with other corporations."
That's not to say it's all smooth sailing for DelJerseyLand. Besides the gubernatorial letters and the salvage bids, there's the matter of finding someone with deep pockets.
Someone who won't mind spending $200,000 for the ultimate leaky boat.
candy.thomson@baltsun.com
