Cost of clean-up, extent of damage caused by Golden Ray still unknown 2 years after sinking

3 years ago 274

Part of Golden Ray heads to Louisiana arsenic crews commencement cutting stern of ship

ST. SIMONS ISLAND, Ga. – Salvage crews person finished cutting isolated the past 2 sections of a cargo vessel that overturned on the Georgia seashore 2 years agone Wednesday.

The multiagency bid overseeing demolition of the South Korean freighter Golden Ray said successful a quality merchandise that the final chopped was completed Saturday. Both monolithic chunks are awaiting removal by barge from the waters disconnected St. Simons Island. They volition beryllium transported to a scrapyard successful Louisiana.

The Golden Ray capsized soon aft leaving the Port of Brunswick with 4,200 vehicles successful its cargo decks connected Sept. 8, 2019.

The enforcement manager of Altamaha Riverkeeper, Fletcher Sams said the section situation has felt the effects ever since.

“It’s precise kin to what we utilized to accidental successful the service -- hurry up and wait,” Sams said.

Sams said removing the wreckage volition hap implicit the adjacent fewer days and week, but the cleanup is going to instrumentality much time.

“We are yet done aft 2 years with the cutting operation. There inactive needs to beryllium a batch of cleanup work. There are inactive 2 ample sections near wrong the EPB that they request to cleanable up,” Sams said.

Crews person started removing the Golden Ray piece-by-piece since past November. Cars wrong the vessel caught occurrence respective times passim the process. Plus lipid and debris person spilled into the St. Simons Sound arsenic precocious arsenic past month.

The wide outgo of the full harm is inactive unknown.

“To date, we don’t person immoderate answers. So acold Unified Command has refused to bash a harm assessment,” Sams added.

Pollution effect teams volition proceed to show for immoderate lipid oregon debris successful the area, according to St. Simons Sound Incident Unified Command.

The wreckage cleanup was primitively scheduled to beryllium finished by the extremity of summertime 2020. Commanders astatine the tract had insisted connected removing the vessel successful ample chunks due to the fact that it was expected to beryllium faster.

Crews spent the past 10 months utilizing a towering crane straddling the shipwreck to chopped it into 8 elephantine sections — utilizing anchor concatenation to teardrop done the hull similar a blunt-edged saw. Progress was slowed respective times, astir notably erstwhile the shipwreck caught occurrence successful May and astatine the extremity of July erstwhile ample amounts of lipid gushed from the vessel’s remnants and fouled the shoreline.

Even aft the past large pieces are gone, there’s inactive extended cleanup to beryllium done of debris that fell into the h2o during cutting and lifting of the larger sections.

The full unit was rescued safely, though four had to beryllium pulled from the motor room aft a peculiar squad of rescuers chopped an flight hatch done the hull.

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