Coast Guard Will Tackle Bulk Of Aleutian Wreck In The Spring

[hatrack]

DUTCH HARBOR, Alaska -- "Conceding that winter conditions will get worse before improving, the Coast Guard yesterday approved a scaled-back salvage plan that calls for pumping oil from a portion of the broken freighter stranded off Alaska's coast -- and leaving the bulk of the recovery for late spring or summer.

The plan leaves both halves of the 738-foot Selendang Ayu in the Bering Sea to endure months of severe Aleutian Islands weather, possibly breaking further apart and dumping more oil into the wildlife-rich area. Coast Guard officials and salvage experts said they had little choice: Neither section of the grounded Malaysian freighter can be made buoyant enough to tow safely.

Alaska Gov. Frank Murkowski, listening in to the announcement from Anchorage, openly wondered what the rest of the ship will look like after such a long wait. "She's going to be all broken up in a couple of months, isn't it? We'll just have to see how it plays out," he said.

Taking advantage of a break in the harsh weather that produced rare patches of blue sky yesterday, workers laid out more oil-blocking boom off the northwest coast of Unalaska Island and started getting the first skimmer boats in place to remove patches of floating oil. It will take roughly two weeks to get the crews, industrial helicopters and tanks in place to begin pumping 122,000 gallons of bunker oil and diesel fuel from the boat's stern section, the Coast Guard said. The oil will be pumped into 2,000 tanks delivered by helicopters to the listing rear of the freighter. When pumped full, they will be airlifted off and drained."

EDIT

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/204003_spill16.html