The decommissioned destroyer HMCS Annapolis, set to become an artificial reef in Howe Sound, remains above water, for now.

The Save Halkett Bay Marine Park Society was scheduled to be in a federal court hearing Jan. 27 to seek an injunction to quash the pending sinking of the Annapolis. The court postponed that hearing, setting aside Feb. 25 and 26 for a new hearing according to the society’s lawyer Martin Peters.

article continues below

Environment Canada, however, told Squamish Chief that an exact date had not yet been confirmed.

Meanwhile, the ship remains bobbing at sea, prepared for sinking, in Long Bay off Gambier Island and can’t be moved or sunk.

In a drastic effort to stop the scheduled Jan. 17 sinking of the Annapolis in Halkett Bay, lawyers for the group petitioned the Federal Court of Canada on Jan. 6 to issue an injunction.

The society’s current fight is with Environment Canada and its disposal at sea permit to sink the Annapolis. The not-for-profit lobby group argues that there are toxic chemicals in the ship’s paint that are designed to be dangerous to marine life and which are also banned in Canadian waters.

“We believe … our expert’s comment on the toxicity in the paint has given Environment Canada pause,” said Gary MacDonald, spokesperson for the Save Halkett Bay Society.

Meanwhile the Artificial Reef Society of B.C., which has been prepping to sink the ship for six years, will just wait.

“As long as the court ordered stay remains in effect, we cannot do any detailed planning,” said Rick Wall, director of communications for the Artificial Reef Society.

Wall said he wouldn’t discuss publicly what the delay has cost the society financially.

Squamish Nation leaders have been involved with the proposed sinking from the start and are watching closely to see what Environment Canada says in terms of the paint, according to their spokesperson.

The Nation gave support for the sinking to the Artificial Reef Society in 2008 and again in 2010.

“(Support was given) on the whole basis that the Nation is in support of the revitalization of Howe Sound, and according to all the information and data that we were given, Halkett Bay was a place where they used to put log booms and so there’s an existing fibre layer down below. And as most of us know, that basically starves out any kind of growth at the bottom of the ocean,” Christopher Lewis (Syeta’xtn) told Squamish Chief.

“Now we are just in a holding pattern.”

The Annapolis, if sunk, would be the eighth artificial reef in B.C.