Aerial View Maps - San Francisco area people: What's with those old ships in Suisun Bay?

San Francisco area people: What's with those old ships in Suisun Bay?

I was fooling around with Yahoo Maps when I happened to notice these vessels in aerial photos. Who is storing them there, and why? Do any of them ever get moved out?

Public Comments

US navy and all ship are retired, average 50 years old, the savage in Texas will move out in years because it pollute the water.
It's known as the Mothball Fleet or Ghost Fleet, and is officially called the National Defense Reserve Fleet. Technically, military ships were stored there so they could be re-activated if the need arose; but they've been there so long that they're deteriorating and causing environmental problems. Just recently, plans have been announced to dismantle and scrap these ships. For more information, search for "mothball fleet". news article from 1997: http://articles.sfgate.com/1997-09-15/news/17756649_1_mothball-fleet-ready-reserve-force-ships recent articles: http://articles.sfgate.com/2010-04-01/news/20830357_1_ships-maritime-administration-environmental-groups http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/11/12/BA781G9LCF.DTL
They're old mothballed World War 2 ships. Ever since I was a kid, the number of vessels stored there has gradually declined.
Total pollution in mothball for 60 years