ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) - Divers in a final round of cleanup operations are removing parts of the Selendang Ayu, a soybean freighter that ran aground off the island of Unalaska in 2004, state officials said.
Salvage crews need about two more months to cut up and haul off the sections remaining above the water line, said Leslie Pearson, spill-response program manager for the state Department of Environmental Conservation. She said the rest will be left where it sits on a rocky shelf about a quarter mile from shore.
State officials want to remove as much of the wreck as possible to reduce the chances of the vessel breaking apart and washing ashore, Pearson said. She said metal scraps grinding against the sea floor could kill marine life.
Divers are still cutting away bulkheads and the engine room that once housed the engines. The scraps will be sent to Seattle. Several 26-ton hatch covers that floated to the beach must also be cleared.
Crewmen dangling by mountaineering ropes use waterproof cutting torches to slice off plates of rusting metal, which are lifted off the vessel with a crane, said Dan Magone of Magone Marine Service Inc., which is salvaging the ship.
"It's very much like (rock) climbing," Magone said.
The 738-foot freighter was carrying about 66,000 tons of soybeans from Washington state to China when it lost power on the north side of the island in December 2004. It drifted for two days, then broke in half after grounding off Skan Bay in a Bering Sea storm. An estimated 335,000 gallons of oil spilled from the ship.
Six crewmen died when a Coast Guard helicopter crashed during a rescue attempt.
The state may seek a settlement before it pursues a civil lawsuit for damages, officials said. The ship's owner, Singapore-based IMC shipping, has paid about $100 million for the cleanup so far.
Oil from a final six miles should be done in less than two weeks, said Gary Folley, state on-scene coordinator.
Three beaches won't be cleaned now because they're too steep and difficult to access, Pearson said. But if the oil isn't cleaned naturally in a few years, she said, the company may be asked to clean up those areas too.
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Information from: Anchorage Daily News, http://www.adn.com
