The fishing vessel Nordic Viking has been resting at the bottom of the Seward Harbor for more than a week now. The US Coast Guard has taken over command of the recovery and clean-up efforts, including a fuel spill that was observed more than a mile out Resurrection Bay.
For the latest, KDLL’s Shaylon Cochran spoke with Kat Sorensen, who has been reporting on the sinking for the The Seward Sun.
Kat Sorensen: The major development is that they moved away from using Storm Chasers, a local, Seward-based salvage clean up crew, and instead hired a Seattle-based crew, Global Diving and Salvage, to take over the clean up in the harbor. It is kind of an unexpected shift. The Coast Guard thought it would be more prudent to work with Global.
Shaylon Cochran: Are there updates in terms of trying to raise the ship?
KS: Storm Chasers did plug the ship, but from there, it’s just been moving along paperwork-wise. Now, the next step is to have this new company work to start raising it, but nothing like seeing it rise out of the water...It’s just been a lot of behind the scenes work.
SC: What about the actual spill? Many hundreds of gallons of petroleum products of various types and we saw some pretty big sheens going out into Resurrection Bay. What’s that part of the process like?
KS: Apparently, the Coast Guard said the (sheen) went out about a mile and a half. Their early estimates say that 100-200 gallons were released from the Nordic Viking. That is a good number in comparison to what it could have been. Larry March, the owner of the vessel, estimated there was about 700 gallons of marine diesel in the hold tanks and 50 gallons of gasoline in the deck tanks. So...it isn’t as bad as it could have been, but it’s still pretty rough when you see that sheen going out into the harbor then into Scheffler Creek and the Lagoon.
SC: What is March’s role in all of this? He’ll eventually be responsible, but do we know the degree to which that might be?
KS: With the Oil Pollution Act and the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund, it requires the vessel owner to have full liability for damages from oil spills. But the oil spill liability covers that when the responsible party is unable to do so. So with the Coast Guard opening that fund up, it seems Larry March is unable to cover it although there’s no definite reason why or why not. He has declined to comment and across the board, not a lot of word on his end.
SC: Are there rules in the Seward Harbor about long term docking of boats and how much stuff they can have on board?
KS: No, there’s nothing like that. Some people live in the Seward Harbor all winter long, so there are no restrictions like that.
