Okaloosa County Adds $1.24M to SS United States Reef Project Budget
If you've been following the SS United States reefing plan, know that no deployment date has been set — the ship is still waiting on Army Corps of Engineers approval as of the September 15, 2026 board vote. It remains docked at Coleen Marine in Mobile, Alabama, with its berth secured through December 31, 2026. Check Okaloosa County's official announcements for the eventual sinking date off Destin-Fort Walton Beach before planning a visit.
The filing tells a familiar story: remediation is done, but the project is stuck waiting on the Army Corps of Engineers, and every idle day at Coleen Marine's Mobile dock adds cost the county says it couldn't control. That's how a contract goes from its original scope to $11,420,000 with a $1.242 million amendment tacked on to cover dockage fees through year-end and compliance work. Coleen Marine comes out looking fine here — the county explicitly credits it with cost and schedule discipline within contracted scope, so this isn't a contractor overrun story, it's a permitting-delay story. The losers are Okaloosa taxpayers footing storage costs for a ship with nowhere to go yet. In the reader's shoes, I'd treat any "sinking date" rumor as premature until that federal sign-off finally lands.