Cleaner harbour a haven for wood-chewing mites
Posted Sep 23, 2010 05:49:26 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Cleaning up the harbour has created a new problem for the Canadian Navy and other occupants of the Halifax waterfront.
The pollution that made the water murky, and occasionally smelly, also helped suppress an organism known as a shipworm.
Shipworms eat wood – like wooden piers and slipways and have been a problem in Canada’s west coast naval base.
An assessment at the Halifax Dockyards confirms the little critters are now thriving in the newly cleared up harbour.
CBC reports that staff are considering wrapping wooden pilings in fiberglass to try and repel the shipworms.
Peter Murphy, who owns part of the boardwalk, says he’d rather battle the shipworms than the “floatables” that were previously a regular feature of the harbour.
