Okaloosa County spent millions of dollars to relocate and sink the SS United States, a 990-foot-long ocean liner with a rich history including the fastest crossing of the Atlantic Ocean to date.
For over a year, the county planned and prepared to turn the legendary ship into the world’s largest artificial reef, about 22 nautical miles off the coast of Destin, running into a few hiccups along the way and garnering national attention.
Finally, Okaloosa County announced this week that the SSUS is set to be sunk the second week of November.
“We don’t use explosives,” Okaloosa County public information officer Nick Tomecek said. “We do what we call controlled flooding. So, essentially there’ll be holes cut in the vessel strategically, one for it to sink, and then the other for marine life, so that they don’t get stuck, like sea turtles. They need big holes to swim through, so those holes will be cut. But they’ll pump seawater into the vessel until she sinks.”
The SSUS’ deployment, which spectators can view live at AJ’s in Destin, is the finale of an operation which Tomecek said brought widespread attention to Okaloosa County.
“I don’t think that we could have anticipated the amount of attention that our purchase and the moving of the vessel got, and the amount of attention that went worldwide just because of the the the history of the ship and the plans that the [SSUS Conservancy] had, people really pushed hard to to keep that vessel and make it into something that could be enjoyed above water forever.”
Tomecek said protestors in Okaloosa County and across the country hoped to convince the Board of County Commissioners not to sink the SSUS in the interests of preserving history— But he believes the benefits greatly outweigh the costs.
“We have a large diving community,” Tomecek said. “We also have a big fishing community, and even some of the environmentalists that know what artificial reefs can do for the environment were pretty excited. So when I talk about the SS United States, I say there’s three main benefits of this, and one is the environmental benefit to the marine life down there. It may take some time for a lot of marine life to get there, but you’ll see things show up the day of the sinking to utilize that kind of shelter and/or space for protection for living and growing.”
Financial impact
Tomecek said the world’s largest artificial reef should bring in immense tourism revenue, which will be necessary to offset the $13.47 million the county has spent to buy, remediate and sink the vessel since 2024— Over $3 million greater than the original budget allocation.
“We also secured $4.5 million in partner funding, so that amount will offset the budget. … We spent a million to purchase it, a million for the museum, and now 11.47 million for the towing, insurance, remediation, deployment and everything in between.”
Tomecek noted that funding for the artificial reef project comes entirely from tourism money.
“We can’t, like, reallocate that money to pay for citizens’ groceries or pay for roads,” he said. “It has to be spent on tourism.”
Background
Jennifer Adams, president of tourism development for Okaloosa County, first brought the proposal before the BCC in October 2024.
The agenda request asked the BCC to “request consideration of a purchase and sale agreement for the SS UNITED STATES (SSUS) for $1.0M, as well as a total budget authorization of up to $10.1 million dollars” to buy, remediate, transport and deploy the ocean liner. The budget would also pay for the construction of an SSUS museum on land.
So, what caused the BCC’s $3 million-plus splurge over budget? It wasn’t towing, cleanup or preparation— Tomecek said it’s what the SSUS racked up while sitting still in Philadelphia, her previous home.
“The Coast Guard up there wasn’t satisfied with what we had done to ensure that she’ll get out of that harbor, out of that port. So they kept coming back to us with a list of things that they wanted. That delayed the process of her being moved out of Philadelphia, and so that means you’re sitting at that dock, incurring docking fees until everything’s ready.”
Eventually, the SSUS was towed 1,800 miles from Philadelphia to Mobile, Alabama, where it incurred more unforeseen docking fees while the Okaloosa BCC waited for “the sign-off and thumbs up” from different agencies, Tomecek said, including the Environmental Protection Agency.
“They have best management practices for preparing vessels to create artificial reefs, and it’s kind of like a national standard for cleaning and the preparation of the vessels. So the majority of what was done on the SS United States was, one: cleaning out all the tanks that had fuel or oil in them, and that was not just removing it and then moving on to the next tank. You got to suck out all the fuel, then you got to go in there and scrub it.”
Next, teams had to ensure the vessel was free of toxic chemicals.
“The other big thing was PCBs aboard the vessel, so a lot of that was removed, and some of those were the decking,” Tomecek said. “So like, on the top decks, there was this green— whatever they did when they built it to make it walkable for the passengers, all that had to be scraped off. So essentially, she’s a metal shell.”
Now that the SSUS has been fully remediated and approved by the EPA, Army Corps of Engineers and other relevant agencies, Tomecek said next steps include ensuring the sinking goes smoothly and providing a safe reef for divers.
“We want perfect conditions, and that’s not just stormage,” he said. “That is also, you know— we want a flat gulf to ensure that she goes down the way we want her to. … Our team will dive it right away [after deployment]. We have to put eyes on the vessel on the bottom to ensure that she landed exactly where we said she was going to land to satisfy the permits and and the permissions that we have from the Army Corps of Engineers.”
The Okaloosa County BCC will release an exact sinking date and more information closer to the second week of November.
