Contributed Photo Virginia DEQ A boom remains in place behind the slip that houses The Mizar, a former U.S. Navy spy ship, during a Virginia Department of Environmental Quality inspection in September 2005, at Bay Bridge Enterprises’ Chesapeake shipyard. In Oregon, Gov. Ted Kulongoski has said that this style of ship recycling — where vessels are partially dismantled in the water — won’t be happening in this state. He wants ships dismantled in graving or dry docks — or not at all.

Gary Whitney has watched the ebb and flow of mothballed military ships year after year at Suisun Bay, Calif.

His company often tows them, one after the other, down through the Panama Canal and up to Brownsville, Texas. There, shipbreakers clean out hazardous materials, such as asbestos, PCBs and residual fuels. They cut up the steel for recycling.

For a decade, he's watched managers at industrial companies dream about ways to open up West Coast facilities to dismantle those ships. No one has succeeded. For eight years, Whitney's been a dreamer, too. And he thinks he has the best plan yet.

“Our intent was for us to re-open the ex-Naval shipyard at Mare Island to use the dry docks there,” Whitney said.

The shipyard has been there for 150 years. When the Navy closed its base in 1996, it left behind a billion-dollar industrial infrastructure that included four dry docks. It's only about 10 miles from the Suisun Bay. His company, Allied Defense Recycling, could tow those derelict vessels downriver rather than traversing oceans and take them apart in a controlled facility.

“In early 2001, we were about at the point we were going to sign, seal and deliver something,” Whitney said.

Then came Sept. 11. Federal funding priorities shifted.

All that's physically in Whitney's way is mud. Since 1994, thick silt has filled the Mare Island dry dock areas to 12 feet deep.

“If they don't do any dredging in the next few years, all that's going to be left is a mud puddle,” said Whitney.

The bigger barriers are political.

Why not in California?

Suisun Bay and Mare Island's neighboring San Pablo Bay eventually drain into San Francisco Bay.

All of the delta, the area that most outsiders just call San Francisco Bay, is an extremely sensitive ecological problem, said John Gibbons, a consultant from Antioch, Calif. Gibbons has studied the condition of the deteriorating military ships. He has worked with ship recycling companies. He's familiar with the barriers to business.

“There's a great reluctance on the part of regulators to allow anything that will further damage the bay,” Gibbons said.

That's not to say that ship recycling would pollute the area, but groups such as the San Francisco Baykeeper and Sierra Club are closely watching industry.

Baykeeper wants to restore the whole watershed. In one of a variety of lawsuits, it targeted the U.S. Environmental Agency over ship ballast water discharges to try to slow the spread of invasive species. The Sierra Club has led “Toxic Tours” of a former Naval shipyard and power plant area to keep pollution issues before Bay Area residents. But those are after effects of industries that began operation long before people worried about contamination of the air, ground and tideflats.

Now, laws are in place. Now, ship repair and construction yards are under more scrutiny - environmentally and for worker safety and wage rules. And now, newcomers must navigate through a sea of permits.

“We've estimated that the permitting process from the day that you commit probably would take two to three years and cost hundreds of thousands of dollars,” Gibbons said.

And there are no guarantees.

Impediments

Most anyone who's ever owned a business can rattle off the names of agencies that might be involved in a ship recycling proposal. In California, they are many: state and federal OSHA, state and federal EPA, water boards, fire marshals and fire departments, electric companies, city, county and state governments; land use boards; redevelopment agencies; ports and more. Permits would include plans for hazardous waste treatment and storage facilities.

“You would have to do an environmental impact report,” said Ron Baker, California Department of Toxics information officer.

That would entail details down to the number of trucks expected to drive in and out of a property. The U.S. Coast Guard is responsible for overseeing the actual movement and condition of the ships themselves, Baker said.

At the nearby Port of Richmond, Maintenance Manager Tom Wilson said there is another deterrent to prospective industrial business - it's that fear of the unknown.

“Even though it's clean by 2006 standards, it's not clean by 2020 standards,” Wilson said.

Companies may find down the road they face clean-up costs or lawsuits over previously approved practices or handling of their hazardous materials by subcontracting companies. Wilson, who's happy to express his personal opinion, said that's just one more reason shipbreaking isn't likely to happen in the Bay Area.

“Which is why the navy prefers sink 'em rather than salvage 'em,” he said.

At Wilson's port, the last shipyard went out of business in 1987. As the shipyard industry has waned, new developments have encroached.

“There's homes going in right next to my terminal here. And it's not just in Richmond. It's everywhere,” he said.

That development wave also is washing up on the shores of the 5,200-acre Mare Island peninsula.

Prime real estate

More than 1,400 acres of Mare Island are developable. About 650 acres of that land are under the control of real estate-oriented Lennar Mare Island LLC.

The company plans to transform the former shipyard into “a vibrant mixed-use community, including a town center, historic core, waterfront promenade with retail and entertainment and urban residential design,” according to a promotional Web site.

The catch is, the land has to be environmentally clean before redevelopment. The site is divided into 10 investigation areas. Four, the least contaminated, have been cleaned, said Lennar spokesman Jason Keadjian. The tougher sites remain, including the dry docks. Cleanup there starts this summer.

Whitney and his partners contend Lennar has an agenda that will not accommodate ship recycling. Keadjian spoke otherwise.

“Generally speaking, we are very interested in potential uses or businesses which could make use of those dry-dock areas,” he said.

Redeveloped Mare Island is home to cabinet manufacturers, a steel fabrication company and a sports fishing boat manufacturer.

“For the right business, this represents a tremendous opportunity,” Keadjian said.

It's just that there are numerous hurdles, he added. As to the dry docks, the hope among Lennar managers is that they will be reused.

“It's all doable,” said Whitney's partner Jack Billings. “It's just the longer you wait, the harder it becomes.”

That's in part why, Billings and Whitney and other companies are looking north to Oregon.

“Sometimes it's best to just give it up,” Whitney said.

But, he stopped short of saying he's ready to quit looking at Mare Island.