A salvage team is set to clean up the wreckage of a ship near St. George Island, months after it ran aground, leaking tens of thousands of gallons of fuel and other oils into the ocean.
The Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation said in a July 21 report that there will be no more spill response for the F/V Arctic Sea that wrecked in early January, but a marine salvage company will begin wreck removal next month.
The 135-foot boat ran aground on the north side of the Pribilof Island in the early morning of January 5. The U.S. Coast Guard pulled the nine-member crew from the boat. No injuries were reported, but the vessel remained aground as salvage teams waited for improved weather conditions to evaluate the wreckage.
Resolve Marine, an international marine salvage company with a shipyard and warehouse in Dutch Harbor, began salvage operations and evaluations in mid-January and has now been contracted to remove the wrecked ship.
According to the state’s report, Resolve’s survey team found that all tanks on the vessel had been compromised and were either full of seawater or empty. The vessel is beginning to break apart, with cracks on both sides of the hull, and parts of the wave wall and bow have completely broken free.
In early June, a separate salvage company, Global Diving and Salvage Inc., performed a pollution survey and found just one of the fuel tanks full of diesel. The state said about 45,000 gallons of fuel from the other tanks had washed out due to damage. About 2,000 gallons of lube oil and hydraulic fluid had also been washed out, and all fish holds were found open and empty.
The Resolve survey team saw no sign of diesel or hydraulic oil on the vessel during their evaluation in late June.
The area is home to many migratory birds and marine mammals including sea lions, the threatened Stellar’s eider and endangered short-tailed Albatross.
The state said drone surveys show heavy bird use on all cliffs near the wreck site with no sheen observed in the area. A team has also collected mussel samples from the island to establish a baseline level of contamination and assess potential shellfish contamination during the wreck removal operations.
The state’s Environmental Conservation Department said removal work is set to begin in early August and should be completed before winter begins.
