The EPA on Wednesday cleared the Navy to sink the carrier USS Oriskany off Pensacola Beach in May, jump-starting long-delayed plans for a new program to turn old warships into artificial reefs.

The agency issued a permit for disposal of toxins known as polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, contained in the ship’s electrical cable, insulation and paint. The permit was the final hurdle Navy leaders needed before returning the famed Korean and Vietnam War carrier from a shipyard in Beaumont, Texas, to Pensacola.

“Without that permit we weren’t going anyplace. We’ve been working on this thing for four years now,” said retired Vice Adm. Jack Fetterman, president and CEO of the Naval Aviation Museum Foundation and a longtime advocated for the Oriskany project.

The Oriskany is the first of more than 20 ships the Navy hopes to dispose of through reefing, and the lengthy Oriskany PCB disposal permit process was a first for the Navy and the EPA.

The carrier will be sunk with a total of about 700 pounds of PCBs, which EPA officials said will slowly leach out over the estimated 100 years it will take the carrier to rust away and should pose no danger to marine life or humans.

Fetterman, who has worked to bring the Oriskany to Pensacola since 2001, said the Navy should begin towing the ship from Texas to Pensacola March 2 and that the Oriskany would return to Pensacola by March 7. The target date for sinking the ship is May 15.

The Navy said final sinking preparations such as removal of doors and hatches and cutting openings in the decks and bulkheads would take place once the ship is returned to Pensacola.

The Oriskany was first towed to Pensacola in December 2004, only to be towed back to Texas in June to ride out the 2005 hurricane season. Hurricanes, EPA permitting problems and the death of one of a lead project scientist contributed to nearly two years of delays in the planned sinking.

Pensacolans celebrated Wednesday’s news, saying the sinking would revitalize the city’s hurricane-battered tourism industry.

“In the long haul, you are looking at the rebirth of one of the historically successful industries of Pensacola, that’s the fishing and diving industry. The Oriskany puts Pensacola on the plans for virtually any diver and fisherman in the country,” said Ed Schroeder, tourism director for the Pensacola Bay Area Chamber of Commerce.

More than 2,500 Oriskany veterans made plans to come to Pensacola for the first scheduled sinking of the Oriskany in the summer of 2004. They included Arizona Sen. John McCain, who flew off the Oriskany before he was taken captive by North Vietnamese forces during the Vietnam War.

Fetterman said Wednesday it would soon be time to start making new celebration plans.

Unofficial sites:

[1] Oriskany Museum and USS Oriskany Reunion Association

[2] USS ORISKANY CVA-34