Since 2009, plans for sinking the ship the HMCS Annapolis have met with considerable push back. Those opposing the project argue that it would disrupt a sensitive marine environment, as well as bring boat-loads of divers into an otherwise quiet bay. Opponents found an ally in the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, when the department agreed that the sinking of the ship could “cover and destroy approximately 1,470 square metres of shallow, near-shore fine sediment seabed.”
Artificial Reef Society of British Columbia’s president Howard Robins, however, has argued from the start that an artificial reef would greatly increase the marine activity in the Bay, creating a new habitat in an area damaged by decades of log-booming activity. Now it appears that the Ministry has reconsidered, on the condition that the project must pass an additional approval process.
On April 04 2015 the HMCS Annapolis found its new home on the bottom of Halkett Bay, Gambier Island.
