Cleanup efforts are finished for the winter on the freighter that grounded and split in two off Unalaska Island in December, and experts now estimate that nearly three-fourths of its fuel spilled into the Bering Sea.
An underwater camera investigating the 738-foot Selendang Ayu dashed experts' hopes that two of the ship's main fuel tanks might still contain oil. Both had broken open on the rocky bottom, putting the total spill of gooey, brown bunker oil at about 320,000 gallons, said Leslie Pearson of the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation.
With the fuel removal complete and the worst of the spilled oil shoveled off nearby beaches, work is largely over until weather improves, which typically happens in April. When workers return, efforts will focus on cleaning up the beaches and hauling off the freighter's 73,000-ton remains.
"They're going to have to come up with a plan to remove it," Pearson said. "How they do that, I don't know."
The salvage firm SMIT America has pumped more than 145,000 gallons of oil and water out of the ship's fuel tanks since early January. The freighter had nearly 450,000 gallons of various fuels on board when it lost power in the Bering Sea and drifted near the coast on Dec. 8.
Six crewmen died when the Coast Guard helicopter trying to rescue them crashed. The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the incident but has not released its findings.
Oil poured out of the broken vessel and onto beaches managed as part of the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge. More than 1,600 dead birds have been recovered, and thousands more are thought to have died but not been found. Six oiled sea otter carcasses also were retrieved.
Until recently, the spill response team had hoped two main fuel tanks carrying 280,000 gallons might still be intact. A third main tank split when the ship broke in half. But an underwater camera recently toured both halves of the grounded ship and found the bottoms crushed and leaking.
Of the estimated 321,000 gallons of heavy oil that spilled, as much as half is thought to have washed ashore, Pearson said. Beach cleanup workers armed with shovels, rakes and heavy plastic bags picked up nearly 640 cubic yards of oil and oiled debris.
They concentrated on the worst-hit beaches and in particular on sections where the oil could be picked up and moved by another storm, she said.
Airborne observers will monitor the area this winter, but cleanup won't resume until April when crews will hit some 34 miles of beach known to be contaminated. Another 150 miles of shoreline have been checked and found clean, Pearson said.
Also in April, the ship's owners are expected to survey the wreck and develop plans for removing it. If it can't be refloated, it may have to be cut into smaller pieces, Pearson said. Salvage experts may eventually decide it can't be moved, but they will have to convince the state, she said. "They'll at least have to give it the old college try."
Plans for the ship's 66,000-ton cargo of soybeans should also be made this spring, Pearson said. Knee-deep accumulations on some beaches are thought to be smothering chitons and other small intertidal creatures, and divers found beans nearly five feet deep on the bottom around the ship.
To date, the cleanup has cost $25 million, according to Coast Guard spokeswoman Gail Sinner.
Daily News reporter Joel Gay can be reached at jgay@adn.com or at 257-4310.