The USS Radford’s final journey
Destroyer will be sunk to create artificial reef off IR Inlet
A diver re-emerges from underneath the USS Arthur W. Radford in the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard on Friday afternoon. Workers are making last-minute preparations before the ship is sunk. Gov. Jack Markell said the Navy destroyer-turned-artificial-reef will provide a big boost to tourism — both for anglers and divers. / THE NEWS JOURNAL/JENNIFER CORBETT
MOLLY MURRAY
The News Journal
Workers finish dismantling the USS Arthur W. Radford in the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard on Friday. The cost of preparing and sinking the ship has been estimated at $795,000. / THE NEWS JOURNAL/JENNIFER CORBETT
In the thick of the Cold War, the USS Arthur W. Radford was a floating surveillance tool, complete with a network of antennas, helicopter ports and landing platforms.
But sometime next week, if all goes well, the Radford will be towed to a spot off the Indian River Inlet — holes cut at its waterline, the seacocks opened — and it will sink to the bottom with a new mission, as an artificial reef.
On Friday, Gov. Jack Markell said the Navy destroyer turned artificial reef will provide a big boost to tourism — both for anglers and divers.
And it will turn a sand-covered section of the ocean floor into a rich, new habitat for sea life from the bottom of the food chain to the top.
He estimated that the reef site will be 400 times richer in marine diversity than the natural bottom and that changes in the species diversity should take place there within days of the sinking.
The project is a joint effort between officials in Delaware, Maryland and New Jersey
and has been several years in the making.
Officials from the three states gathered at thePhiladelphia Navy Yard — where the Radford was berthed, to give the vessel a final sendoff Friday. The Radford is the first multistate reefing project in the country.
The ship, declared a candidate for reefing by the Navy in 2006, was deeded to Delaware.
It is the most ambitious reef project Delaware officials have undertaken. There are already 14 artificial reef sites in Delaware Bay and just offshore in the Atlantic Ocean — some created from ballasted tires, others from concrete culverts and still others from surplus vessels.
Charter boat Capt. Joe Noble, who fishes out of Indian River Inlet and is fond of the new reefs, said it usually takes six months or so for an artificial reef to begin attracting fish.
“A lot depends on the water temperature,” he said.
For the Radford, a 563-foot-long Spruance-class destroyer, the reef site is 26 miles off the inlet and in about 130 feet of water. It is nearly equal distance from Ocean City, Md., Cape May, N.J., and Indian River Inlet.
