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Trash or treasure?
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Posted on Jan 19 2006
No, I’m not talking about the recent turn-dump-stuff-into-construction-materials gig. I mean real local treasure in the form of sought after tourist attractions. We have a couple close at hand if we will just think a little differently about them.
We (taxpayers) just spent $75,000 to cut up a stranded shipwreck and haul it off for scrap. Everybody loses. There is another one sitting forlornly beside the Seaman’s Sunset Restaurant. For probably half the amount we spent to junk the last one, we could temporarily refloat this one, tow it to a deep, carefully chosen spot in our beautiful lagoon and sink it. Instant Tourist Attraction! What once was an eyesore (or perhaps a quaint bit of dockside flotsam) becomes a spot much sought after by cash-spending scuba divers.
Shipwrecks are always at the top of the list of must dive spots. Something most of them wouldn’t walk across the street to see, now becomes an exotic diving experience once submerged. We have an attraction that will wind up on our tourist brochures. Everybody wins.
Yes, we need to coordinate with MPLA, DEQ and others to make sure it’s done right, but it’s worth the effort. We just spent $268,000 to build picnic tables at the Grotto dive site and didn’t improve the actual attraction one bit. For about one tenth the amount we can have a whole new, dollar-generating tourist site. I’m sure if we think about it, there are lots of other items we could sink in the lagoon and all be better off without. But that is a topic for a later time.
Bruce A. Bateman
Tanapag, Saipan
