What do you get when you mix politics, government money and - what some contend are - ticking environmental time bombs?

More politics.

And opportunity.

California's extraordinarily tough laws might be too strong a deterrent to companies that want to recycle the Suisun Bay, Calif., fleet at San Francisco, but Rep. Peter DeFazio said the nation should expect its obsolete ships to be dismantled in contained facilities with tough environmental and worker health safeguards.

“We could show the world how to do it right,” DeFazio said.

But is it an opportunity for Oregon?

Scrap metal prices are climbing and so is the number of companies seeking MARAD's business. The challenge is outcompeting the others to get a piece of it.

Dennis Vaughan thinks he has the answer.

He set a course for hometown Coos Bay. He hopes to build state-of-the-art graving docks here. The retired U.S. Navy rear admiral is partnering with Namik Idil, a New Yorker, who spent 25 years in Turkey, working his way up the ladder in the ship recycling business.

Vaughan said the pair has lined up investors from Turkey and Japan to help their Seattle-based company, Environmental Recycling Systems, hook into MARAD's business. There are 70 acres of vacant port land on Coos Bay's North Spit. Their concept is to build a facility to show the world how ship dismantling can be done -in a way workers are safe, paid decent wages and pollutants don't get released into the environment.

Graving docks have been around for a long time. Remember the Titanic? Way back in 1911-12, workers welded the fated ship together in Thompson Graving Dock in Belfast, Ireland. The concepts remain the same.

The docks are actually built into the ground, so that a dismantling or ship repair operation can be isolated from a waterway.

In Vaughan's concept a floating vessel would be maneuvered into the graving dock. Doors would close behind it. The graving dock would be pumped dry and the water filtered. Once the vessel is broken down, the dock area would be cleaned before it's refilled and another vessel brought in.

ERS has estimated it could spend from $12 million to $30 million to build two graving docks. And Vaughan said he imagines as local, state and federal folks keep pondering the potential environmental safety issues, the cost goes up.

“Now filter the water ... it makes it more expensive with each environmental concern that you try to address,” he said.

Vaughan has fixed his mind on a six-month deadline of whether a project like this is doable in Coos Bay. It all depends on community support.

“If there's a strong objection to it, why go forward?” he asked.

If, after people have learned more through public forums and other information sources, they support it, Vaughan would approach public officials.

“I think there has to be a certain investment from the local and state levels and make it a team effort to put it together,” he said.

But if his options fail inside the United States, Vaughan's company and undoubtedly others are looking into other opportunities.

“It will be done somewhere,” he said.