USS Yorktown Cleanup Ends 50-Year Environmental Threat

For 50 years, the USS Yorktown has been two things at once: a beloved Lowcountry landmark and a quietly simmering environmental threat.

But this fall, after a multiyear, multimillion-dollar rescue mission, South Carolina officials say the danger has finally been drained away.

“These gifts are like a free puppy,” Gov. Henry McMaster joked during a Nov. 12 press conference aboard the ship, a nod to the state’s half-century of caretaking. “It’s a free puppy, but for years and years you could be spending money and taking care of that puppy.”

And spend they did. McMaster first ordered the cleanup in 2022. This year, he stood aboard the massive gray deck and announced the price tag: $31.6 million from the state’s share of the American Rescue Plan Act.

The payoff? A ship once loaded with hazardous sludge is—finally—safe.

The Yorktown has loomed over Charleston Harbor since 1975, when the Navy handed it to South Carolina “as is” and “without warranty.” Visitors never saw it, but deep below deck sat more than 1.6 million gallons of hazardous liquids, nine tons of asbestos, and a hull slowly losing its fight against time.

Even a small leak—50 barrels, or 2,100 gallons—could have fouled the Cooper and Wando rivers, Charleston Harbor, and even Folly Beach, according to the S.C. Office of Resilience. (Post & Courier* reporting.)*

“We prevented a disaster from happening,” said Chief Resilience Officer Ben Duncan to the Post & Courier.

Standing near the marsh fringing Patriots Point, Mount Pleasant Mayor Will Haynie didn’t mince words: a spill would’ve devastated wildlife, tourism, the seafood industry—“the health and wellbeing of everybody.” (Post & Courier.)

The work itself was a mix of engineering rigor and environmental triage.

“We followed a three-tier approach… remediate, mitigate and isolate,” explained Jacqueline Michel, president of Research Planning Inc. and project manager for the cleanup. (Post & Courier.)

Step 1: Remediate. Crews siphoned off fuel and hydraulic oils, then pumped 1.5 million gallons of water back in to keep the ship stable—especially during storms. (Hurricane Hugo once lifted the vessel six feet.)

Step 2: Mitigate. More than 80 oily spaces were scrubbed. Potential PCB contamination in high-traffic areas was cleaned.

Step 3: Isolate. The forward part of the ship—its forecastle—was simply too coated with peeling lead paint to make cleanup feasible. It’s now permanently closed.

With those steps complete, Michel said the Yorktown no longer poses a risk to the harbor from chemical release. (Post & Courier.)

The Yorktown isn’t alone. Roughly 8,500 “potentially polluting” shipwrecks lie across the planet—many from the world wars—and together hold more than 6 billion gallons of fuel oil. (Post & Courier* reporting.)*

Corrosion is accelerating as oceans grow more acidic. But here, at least, the danger has been cut off at the source.

Charleston’s iconic carrier still rusts, yes—but without fuel in its belly, rust is just rust.

And now, for the first time in decades, the Yorktown stands tall purely as what it was meant to be: history, not hazard.

This is a summary of an article published in the Post & Courier. Click here if you’d like to read that article.