Despite a major environmental cleanup completed in 2017, the Suisun Bay Reserve Fleet still hosts 87 vessels, with no development plans announced for the former anchorage site.

The ships still line the horizon off Benicia, a ghost fleet that refuses to fully depart. While environmental groups celebrated the 2017 removal of 57 obsolete vessels from Suisun Bay's "mothball fleet," the anchorage remains home to 87 ships as of April 2025, according to the Maritime Administration's latest inventory.

The Suisun Bay Reserve Fleet, established in 1946 to house merchant vessels after World War II, once held more than 2,000 ships at its peak in 1950. The 2010 consent decree—spurred by a lawsuit from San Francisco Baykeeper and other environmental groups—targeted the worst polluters: non-retention vessels whose deteriorating paint and rust were shedding heavy metals into the bay. By August 2017, the last of those 57 ships, the Cape Borda, was gone.

The cleanup removed 392 tons of hazardous debris, including over 140 tons of paint chips and rust. State officials estimate the effort prevented 50 tons of heavy metals from contaminating bay waters. But the fleet itself didn't disappear. Today, 87 vessels remain in Suisun Bay, including retention ships maintained for national defense readiness and reimbursable custody vessels like the USCGC POLAR SEA.

No development plans have been announced for the former anchorage site. Regional attention has shifted elsewhere: the Port of Benicia's $692 million modernization project and California Forever's controversial proposal for a nearby Solano County shipyard. The former fleet anchorage sits in limbo—cleaned but not cleared, a reminder that some maritime legacies anchor longer than others.

The Maritime Administration's stormwater pollution prevention plan, implemented during the cleanup, has become a national model for reserve fleet sites. But for drivers on Highway 680, the vista point north of the Benicia-Martinez Bridge still reveals ships at anchor, a fleet reduced but not removed.