A new pressure campaign argues the county is about to hand America’s adversaries a propaganda gift — and that a face-saving exit still exists.
FORT WALTON BEACH — Okaloosa County commissioners thought they had a winner: sink a famous old ship, rebrand it as the “world’s largest artificial reef,” and ride the tourism buzz. What they may not have anticipated is that the ship they chose happens to be a National Register-listed Historic Property named the “United States” — and that sinking it, in the middle of a war with Iran, during the nation’s 250th anniversary, might not play as well outside Okaloosa as it does inside county chambers.
That’s the argument being pressed this week by the US Maritime Patriots Alliance, a newly launched advocacy campaign that released a 90-second social media ad targeting all five commissioners by name and photo — twice — and framing the decision as a looming national embarrassment. The ad includes the commissioners’ public photos and contact information, and closes with a direct call to action: Rethink the Sink.
The campaign is the public face of the SS United States Preservation Foundation, Inc., a Florida nonprofit that has spent the last two years fighting to save America’s last and largest ocean liner from extinction. While the Foundation’s ongoing efforts focus on legal and regulatory channels, this one is aimed squarely at the voters who elected the five commissioners, moving the plan forward.
A DIFFERENT KIND OF COUNTY
The argument isn’t aimed at environmentalists or historic preservationists — it’s aimed at the kind of voter who knows what America’s Merchant Marine did in World War II and doesn’t need it explained.
The SS United States is the symbolic flagship of that United States Merchant Marine — the fastest ocean liner ever built, designed under a classified Navy contract to carry an entire Army division across the Atlantic in 72 hours if war came. She is the only vessel in American history to bear the name of the country on her bow without prefix or qualifier. She still holds the transatlantic speed record she set in 1952.
County commissioners approved the acquisition and reef plan before the conflict with Iran reshaped the news environment. The Alliance’s warning to the county commissioners is that the world has changed enough to justify a second look — and that reconsidering is the patriotic choice, not a retreat.
ERIN BROCKOVICH AND THE TOXIC REEF
Beyond the symbolism, the campaign is also highlighting growing concerns about what would end up at the bottom of the Gulf of America. EPA-certified laboratory testing has confirmed hexavalent chromium in the ship’s Cold War-era coatings at levels that researchers have described as catastrophic — a legacy of zinc chromate primer systems now banned under federal law. Dr. Todd Osborne of the University of Florida’s Whitney Laboratory for Marine Bioscience has warned the vessel could become a “toxic reef” and create a “Superfund site” if submerged.
Environmental activist Erin Brockovich, whose name became synonymous with hexavalent chromium contamination after her landmark case against Pacific Gas and Electric, has also weighed in on the environmental dangers posed by sinking the vessel — adding a nationally recognized voice to concerns that county officials have largely waved off.
In a February 18 Facebook post about the SS United States, Brockovich warned county commissioners, “Clean your ship up before you sink her… or be stupid, do it, harm thousands, and spend hundreds of millions cleaning up your crap for the next twenty years.”
The proposed reef site sits 180 feet below the surface, 20 miles offshore, with no civilian hyperbaric chamber within survivability range — a detail that Commissioner Mixon has publicly acknowledged. Every diving emergency at that depth becomes a U.S. Coast Guard search-and-rescue operation.
THE OFF-RAMP
The campaign is careful to offer commissioners a way out that doesn’t require them to admit a mistake. The Foundation has been pushing a proposal called Operation Liberty Shift, under which the U.S. Maritime Administration would provide one or more SL-7 Fast Sealift Ships — already slated for decommissioning, all-steel, free of historic significance and toxic coatings — as a substitute reef candidate. At roughly 946 feet, an SL-7 would still give Okaloosa the title of world’s largest artificial reef.
“For WWII veterans and merchant mariners who built and served on the SS United States, this is sacred maritime heritage,” said Carlos Camacho Jr., co-founder and chief communications officer of the Foundation. “For Okaloosa County, it’s a tourist attraction. There are other ships available right now that can be scuttled — ships without the history, the toxins, or the political fallout that sinking the United States would unleash during the nation’s 250th anniversary. The choice seems obvious.”
The Foundation has briefed the U.S. Department of Transportation, submitted materials to the Department of the Interior, and drawn support from members of Congress. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has formally determined that the sinking would constitute an adverse effect to a National Register-listed historic property. A Section 106 review under the National Historic Preservation Act remains active and incomplete, as does a required review under the National Environmental Policy Act. The Foundation remains a federally recognized consulting party in the ongoing review.
THE CLOCK
The county’s timeline has the sinking scheduled for this spring, leaving the Alliance a narrow window. The campaign is built around speed: get the ad into social media circulation, generate earned media attention, and create enough political noise that at least one or two commissioners reconsider before the decision becomes irreversible.
For now, the fight has come home to five county commissioners and the voters who put them there. The question the Alliance is asking — loudly, and in paid media — is whether those commissioners are prepared to defend their decision on a national stage for all of America to see.
Okaloosa has never had a shortage of patriotic pride. The campaign is betting that pride cuts both ways.
