Greenies try to scuttle plans to sink HMAS Adelaide

Courier Mail -

Plans to sink the decommissioned warship HMAS Adelaide off the NSW Central Coast may be scuttled by an environment group keen to take the matter back to court.

NSW Lands Minister Tony Kelly on Thursday announced April 13 as the date the Adelaide would be sunk off Avoca Beach.

The Labor government hopes it will become an international tourist attraction for scuba divers.

"Obviously, this will be the cleanest ship on Australian waters," Mr Kelly told reporters on Thursday in Sydney.

Final clean-up work on the ship is expected to conclude in March.

Labor MP for The Entrance, Grant McBride, said the campaign to sink the ship began 10 years ago and has undergone more stringent conditions than other ships scuttled to create tourist attractions.

"There is no issue anywhere else in New South Wales where they've sunk boats and made them artificial reefs," Mr McBride told reporters.

Land and Property Management Authority NSW employee Craig Abbs has led the project to prepare the ship for sinking.

He said the ship was ready back in March last year, when the government received a permit to scuttle.

But court action from environmental groups delayed the process.

"The intention was that we had prepared the vessel in accordance with the requirements," Mr Abbs said at the press conference.

Last September, the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) found the boat could be sunk once it was cleared of exfoliated red lead paint and wiring associated with PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls).

Mr Abbs said the extra work cost $1.5 million and the court action added another $1 million, bringing the total cost of the project to $8.5 million.

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