Currently there are 238 old ships in the United States National Defense Reserve Fleet, most located in Texas, Virginia and California, that will need to be dismantled. According to the Environmental News Service, some of the ships are in dangerous condition and pose an environmental threat as they have never been emptied of fuels, oils and other hazardous substances⁵.

Ships containing nuclear material create special cause for concern. Nuclear submarines are generally cleared of their nuclear material when they are decommissioned in the U.S., but Russian nuclear submarines are not handled in the same way. Often, Russian nuclear submarines are left to rust before nuclear material is fully captured from the disposed vessels, primarily because facilities to remove and contain nuclear material are overburdened. As the graph below shows, significant numbers of Russian nuclear submarines are in existence today, and will have to be dealt with in the future.

Nuclear powered military ship construction in USSR (Russia) and USA⁶

We would be remiss to discuss ship disposal without bringing up the issue of artificial reefs. Many smaller vessels are deliberately sunk at sea in order to create artificial reefs, which draw in fish from surrounding areas and create opportunities for both recreational and commercial fishing. However, the extent to which such artificial reefs actually boost fisheries production has been disputed – even though many ship disposals of this nature are "sold" to local decision makers as a biomass-enhancing tool. While there are certainly examples of well-cleaned decommissioned ships creating enhanced underwater habitats for marine organisms, the condition of the decommissioned ships must be thoroughly evaluated before sinking. Unfortunately, strict standards do not apply in many countries, and once the ship is sunk it is out of sight, out of mind – while slowly leaching poisons in the darkened depths.

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⁵www.ens-newswire.com/ens/may2007/2007-05-31-09.a
⁶ Miasnikov E., Military Nuclear Powered Ships, In Nuclear Encyclopedia, ed. by A. Yaroshinskaya, Yaroshinskaya Charitable Fund, 1996, pp. 148-159 cited in Anatoli S. Diakov1, Vadim K. Korobov2 and Eugene V. Miasnikov. 1997. Nuclear Powered Submarine Inactivation and Disposal in the U.S. and Russia: A Comparative Analysis
Problems of Material Science, Issue 2 (8), 1997, pp.37-44).