Decommissioned Navy ship HMAS Darwin offered to Tasmania by the federal government in August.

The state government has not yet made a decision on whether to proceed with the project or not, as the total cost of the scuttling needed to be assessed.

No Ship Action Group representative Michelle Meares spoke to St Helens residents at a meeting on Saturday at the St Helens Neighbourhood House.

The group was originally created to campaign against the scuttling of the decommissioned HMAS Adelaide at Avoca Beach in NSW.

About 50 East Coast residents were in attendance at the meeting.

Ms Meares said scuttling a seven-storey high, 4000-tonne warship in one of the world’s most pristine bays was a significant risk.

“The proposed site is just over 500 metres off the beach,” she said.

“This would be the closest ever scuttled warship to the coast in Australian waters and poses significant risks to the marine environment, shoreline and local community.

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“The Deed of Gift under which the vessel is transferred from the Commonwealth to the state government means the state government carries all the liability for the life of the wreck estimated to be up to 200 years by experts, and all the contractual risk.”

When the news broke that the state government had been offered the vessel, St Helens Chamber of Commerce president and dive operator Peter Paulsen said it would cost money to get the ship to become spotlessly clean and to have no environmental impact.

“Beyond that, that’s it. Once it’s on the bottom, you don’t want to touch it again. There’s no maintenance factor here,” he said.

He said the wreck would also have the benefit of becoming a habitat for fish.

“The day after the Darwin hits the bottom, the sun is still going to come up, the beaches are still going to look the same, the water clarity is going to be just as clear,” he said.

The only difference is that we now have a giant fish habitat, with thousands of fish looking for a new home.”

Break O’Day mayor Mick Tucker said the council was heavily involved in the push to secure the HMAS Tobruk as a dive wreck, and understood the benefits an artificial dive wreck could have financially as well as to the environment.

“It has been well documented that artificial reefs become safe havens and breeding grounds for local marine life as the dive wreck is protected from fishing,” he said.