Posted on Tue, Sep. 26, 2006

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Work on Hunley to go on for years

U.S. Navy decides Confederate submarine must undergo lengthy preservation process

By JOHN MONK

jmonk@thestate.com

The U.S. Navy has ruled the Hunley submarine must be preserved by a traditional soaking process, something that could increase both the time and the cost involved to preserve the sub.

It might take “five to seven” years to get the H.L. Hunley museum-ready, said Robert Neyland, head of the U.S. Navy’s Naval Historical Center’s Underwater Archaeology Branch, on Monday.

The S.C. Hunley Commission and Clemson University, which is planning to take over the sub’s preservation, had hoped the work would be complete by 2009.

Preservation was expected to cost about $800,000 a year for three years, according to Clemson’s estimates. It isn’t known how the cost would be affected annually, but the additional time is almost sure to drive up the total money required.

Raegan Quinn, spokeswoman for Friends of the Hunley, the Hunley Commission’s foundation, said Monday it’s “too early to make budget reduction projections this far out with so many contributing factors.”

In making its decision, which was reviewed by more than a half-dozen international experts, the Navy said an alternate — and quicker — process developed by Clemson is too experimental for the Hunley, raised from the ocean floor in 2000.

The Navy’s preferred process involves soaking the corroded, 10-ton Confederate sub in a solution such as sodium hydroxide or sodium bicarbonate. Those chemicals will slowly extract sea salts from the sub’s hull.

Without preservation, the Hunley, which lies in a tank of cool water in a North Charleston laboratory, will turn to rust if exposed to air. Neyland said the chosen treatment is the most conservative and safest for the sub, the first to sink a ship in warfare.

Neyland spoke Monday after releasing a letter the Navy sent earlier this month to Hunley Commission chairman Sen. Glenn McConnell, R-Charleston. Efforts to reach McConnell for comment were unsuccessful.

In addition to an increase in the cost and time for preservation, the decision means:

• The Hunley Commission will have more time to plan and build a proposed $42 million Hunley museum. The commission approved the plan for the museum in 2004 and selected North Charleston as its site. That city pledged in 2004 to give $50,000 per year until the sub is in a new museum. Mayor Keith Summey could not be reached for comment Monday about whether a longer preservation process would cost the city more.

• A proposed provision in a tentative deal between Clemson and the Hunley Commission that requires Clemson to preserve the Hunley by Feb. 1, 2009, now appears difficult to attain.

Under that provision, the Hunley Commission would be allowed to repossess the Hunley lab if Clemson did not finish preserving the sub by 2009. By then, Clemson would have spent $3 million in state bond money to upgrade the lab, meaning McConnell’s commission would acquire a lab with $3 million in improvements in 2009. If it hit the deadline, under the deal, Clemson would keep the lab.

Last year, McConnell said a “new technique that has been developed at the (Hunley) laboratory in conjunction with Clemson University” would result in a speedy preservation.

“I envision us having the Hunley ready somewhere around 2008-2009,” said McConnell at a Sept. 7, 2005, Hunley Commission meeting, according to the minutes of that meeting.

“The Hunley will be able to make her final trip upstream to a new facility many, many, many years ahead of what anybody had projected,” McConnell said then.

But the Navy, which has the final say-so in Hunley preservation, made it clear in its letter to McConnell that the best method is the soaking method.

The Navy’s letter, written by retired Admiral Paul Tobin, Naval History director, said Clemson’s “innovative research into the sub-critical methodology is very promising, but this new process is not far enough along at this time to benefit conservation of Hunley. In addition, no equipment or facilities to accommodate the submarine in this new treatment exists. It may be that in the future, if more research and development continues into this process, this decision can be revisited.”

Quinn praised the Navy’s decision. “We recommended the approved conservation process, while outlining the sub-critical treatment as a potential alternative for the future once more research is completed,” she said via e-mail.

“The letter is the first official documentation from the Navy stating they see great value and promise in the sub-critical methodology, and we see it as an overwhelming endorsement of the research we are conducting,” Quinn wrote.

Essentially, Clemson’s method involved immersing the Hunley in a pressurized heated chemical solution — which theoretically would trigger the quick release of salts. While Clemson researchers have experimented on small iron objects, more research is needed before attempting something as large and complex as the Hunley, Neyland said scientists concluded.

Clemson officials did not return phone calls Monday.

Approval of a preservation plan has taken more than two years. In 2004, Hunley scientists submitted their plan to the Navy.

Since then, the Navy has circulated the document to leading underwater scientists, conservators, archaeologists, and other heritage experts from France, the United Kingdom, Australia and the United States, Neyland said.

One of those scientists, Betty Seifert, a conservator and acting director of the Maryland Archaeological Conservation Laboratory, said she was glad the Navy chose the time-tested soaking process.

“You don’t want to use the Hunley as a test case,” Seifert said. “The soaking process is safe. It will take a while, but you won’t destroy the artifact.”

No one can know how long the work will take, she said. “There’s no easy answer. I’ve seen cannon balls that take two years.”

Removing salt from iron is a tricky process that depends on things like the iron’s makeup and “how trapped the salt is in the matrix of the metal,” she said.

Hunley Commission member Rep. Chip Limehouse, R-Charleston, said, “What I want is what is best for the Hunley. Whether it takes five or more years to preserve the Hunley is not important. What is important is that it is done properly.”

Commissioners Rep. Kenny Bingham, R-Lexington, and Sen. John Courson, R-Richland, agreed.

“You only get one shot,” said Bingham. But he said he also was glad the Navy spoke favorably of Clemson’s experimental process. It may not be used on the Hunley, he said, but it could result in scientific advances in the future. “It’s like NASA.”

Seifert cautioned it may take years to preserve the Hunley. “This is not instant gratification.”

Reach Monk at (803) 771-8344.