Coast Guard cutter heads to a Mexican scrap yard this week

Note: This article was written by the Daily Mirror Staff and published on October 24, 2013 by the Kodiak Daily Mirror.
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The end has come for the Coast Guard cutter Storis. 
Built in WWII and decommissioned in 2007, the icebreaking cutter was a mainstay for the Coast Guard in Alaska for 50 years. On Friday, it will be towed from the federal government’s mothball fleet in Suisun Bay, Calif., bound for Ensenada, Mexico, and scrapping.

The Storis Museum, a group dedicated to preserving the ship, announced the news on its Facebook page Wednesday afternoon. “We tried everything within our power to save the ship from this ignoble fate. It is so unfortunate and utterly heartbreaking that this magnificent and proud ship gave so much over her 64 years of commissioned service and the very government that she served ultimately let her down in the end and sold her off for scrap rather than promote her preservation,” wrote Jon Ottman, a volunteer with the museum.

Wednesday’s news ends years of attempts by volunteers to turn the Storis into a museum. As originally planned, the Storis would have occupied a permanent berth on the Juneau waterfront. In June, the Storis volunteers joined The Last Patrol, a Toledo, Ohio-based group, to try to bring the ship to that freshwater city.

All attempts at preservation were dealt a blow when the Storis Museum failed to convince the federal government to donate the ship for preservation. The Storis was then sold at auction for $70,100 to an unidentified bidder later confirmed to be a scrapper.

The Storis became the first American-flagged ship to travel the Northwest Passage when it did so in 1957 as part of a convoy of 96 ships.

After that, it was stated in Juneau and Kodiak, performing rescues and Arctic work with the US Coast Guard. It became the “Queen of the Fleet,” the oldest Coast Guard ship in commission, before it was taken out of service in 2007.

The Storis, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, isn’t the only prominent warship consigned to the scrap yard this week. On Tuesday, the US Navy announced it had sold America’s first supercarrier, the USS Forrestal, to a Texan scrapper for 1 cent.

The low price of the sales can be attributed to the expense of converting a warship to civilian use. Any buyer is required to tow the ship away, then remove all hazardous material — PCBs, asbestos and chemicals — before either scrapping it or turning it into a museum.

Sinking ships as artificial reefs is commonly done with civilian vessels, but the sinking of the aircraft carrier USS Oriskany cost more than $13 million, deterring further projects along those lines.