Governor Henry McMaster and the South Carolina Office of Resilience (SCOR) announced the successful completion of the USS Yorktown Environmental Remediation Project. The months-long effort, initiated by a 2022 Executive Order, successfully removed massive quantities of hazardous materials that posed a critical threat to the Charleston Harbor and the Lowcountry economy.
The historic USS Yorktown, an Essex-class aircraft carrier decommissioned in 1970 and relocated to the Charleston Harbor in 1975, had become an environmental risk. Due to continued corrosion of its hull, pollutants left over from its Navy service were at high risk of leaking into the sensitive marine ecosystem. Had the materials leaked, the catastrophic damage would have destroyed marshes, killed marine life, and threatened industries supporting thousands of local jobs.
The project successfully removed more than 1.6 million gallons of hazardous fluids and over nine tons of asbestos from the vessel…