Marine Recycling Corp. of
Port Colborne, Ont., won a $12.6-million contract to scrap the former HMCS
Preserver, a decommissioned Canadian naval auxiliary oiler replenishment
vessel, and the auxiliary research vessel Quest.
SYDNEY — Shipbreaking will
be done at the McKeil Marine docks, across Sydney Harbour from the downtown
marine terminal.
On Friday, officials with
the Department of National Defence and Public Services and Procurement Canada
were on hand at the Sydport Industrial Park docks to announce a $12.6-million
contract to Marine Recycling of Ontario for the disposal of former naval
auxiliary oiler replenishment vessel HMCS Preserver and former Canadian Forces
auxiliary research vessel Quest.
Earlier this year, Marine
Recycling, based in Port Colborne, Ont., also won a $2.6-million contract to
scrap the MV Princess of Acadia, which was the former Digby ferry.
The former oiler and ferry
are both tied up in Sydney Harbour waiting to be scrapped, while the research
vessel is expected to arrive at the docks this fall.
Marine Recycling founder
Wayne Elliott said the former Princess of Acadia was supposed to be recycled at
the company's Ontario facility, but towing of dead vessels is currently on hold
in the St. Lawrence Seaway, so the former ferry is stuck waiting in Sydney
Harbour.
Elliott said his company is
leasing space at the McKeil Marine docks and has been shipbreaking in Ontario
for decades.
Despite the industry's well
deserved reputation for being environmentally unfriendly, shipbreaking can be
done safely and Marine Recycling plans to follow all environmental regulations,
he said.
"Our company ... was
the world's first environmentally ISO-certified company, 15 years ahead of the
second, since the year 2000," Elliott said during a press conference with
Sydney-Victoria MP Mark Eyking.
"And we operate at
quite a different standard than the areas of the world that you're speaking of
now with all the bad news and the carnage. We're the oldest ship recycler in
the world. We've been at it longer than anyone else in the world, and I think
this is ship No. 134 with no accidents, no insurance claims, no loss of
vessels.
"So it's a pretty good
track record and we have no intention of changing that."
Eyking, who was speaking on
behalf of acting public services minister Jim Carr, said the latest contract
would add 35 direct jobs in Cape Breton and he has no concerns about the
environment around Sydney Harbour.
Marine Recycling has a long
family history of successful shipbreaking, he said.
"We are very confident
in ... their company and the work that they have done, and the work they're
going to do here over the next little while," Eyking said. "This is
not something that is new to the corporation. They've been doing this in Port
Colborne and it's something that we can do well in this country.
"We have the expertise
to do it and in an environmentally sound way."
Eyking said several times
the ship was being "decommissioned" and that he hoped other
decommissioning work would come to Sydney Harbour, but federal officials later
said technically Preserver was decommissioned last year in Halifax. They said
the latest contract is for shipbreaking, not decommissioning.
Decommissioning involves
removing key operating components and taking a ship out of service. Shipbreaking
involves cutting the ship up for scrap.
Elliott said all hazardous
materials, such as batteries, fuel and oil, were removed from the ship before
it was towed from Halifax to Sydney. The ship still contains some asbestos, but
Elliott said dangerous materials like that would be handled and disposed of
safely and according to regulations.
Workers will test various
internal components for dangerous materials, such as asbestos and heavy metals,
and then begin cutting the ship apart from the inside, he said.
Once that work is done, the
ship's exterior will be cut apart. Many of the materials, including the ship's
steel, will be sold for scrap.
Elliott also said much of
the work can be done while the ship floats, however the company will eventually
install a slip that will allow the ship to be taken out of the water for final
dismantling.
He also said the company,
based on Lake Erie, has long wanted to work on Canada's East Coast and is now
planning to take on its main shipbreaking competitors in Turkey.
"We hope this is the
start of a good, long-term operation and relationship," said Elliott.
The steam-driven Preserver
was built in 1970 and was paid off — decommissioned — last year in Halifax,
after serving as a military supply ship for decades. Her sister ship,
Protecteur, was scrapped in Liverpool last year.
Mike Stege, a ship disposal
officer with National Defence, said it was "bittersweet" being in
charge of dismantling the former Preserver, especially because he served as the
ship's chief electrician from 1999 to 2001, overseeing all electrical systems
and propulsion.
"It's a bittersweet
moment when you look at her now," he said. "You come full circle from
a living ship to all of a sudden I'm disposal manager, so that's a little
different.
"It becomes a part of
you. When you sail with 300 of your best friends for months upon months at sea,
you become very close. It's no longer an inanimate object. It lives with you.
"Every ship has a
different personality. Completely different. This one, because she has so much
sea time, she used to do long deployments of fuelling NATO ships and all that,
so we'd be gone for six months at a time. It was nothing in those days for us
to sail 200-plus days in a year.
"This one, her nickname
is the Heart of the Fleet, basically because she supplies food, water,
everything to so many.
"The problem is with her,
she's a steam-driven (ship), so as technology advanced, steam is still steam.
It was time to put the little lady down. You can't find parts for them
anymore."
Retired chief petty officer
second class Mike Senman of Eastern Passage spent a brief period aboard
Preserver during training in 1988 and served as a marine engineer on the ship
from 2002 to 2009.
He said some service members
implied the supply ship was a luxury cruiser because of its size and stability
on the sea.
However, Senman said, it was
also hard work and it was sometimes dangerous.
"A lot of the other
sailors would call it the Love Boat because she's big and fat and proud and she
rides really well along the ocean," he said. "The destroyers and the
frigates tend to bob up and down just because of the way they're cut."
In 1988, Senman had just
gone off watch while Preserver was fuelling a NATO ship on one side. On the
other side, a British vessel accidentally ran into Preserver and punched a hole
in her side above the waterline.
No one was injured in the
incident, he said. There was no danger of sinking, and thankfully there was no
fire.
Because of the length of
time spent at sea, sailors tend to think fondly of ships as their home away
from home, and that makes it difficult to watch as ships are dismantled, said
Senman.
He happened to see the
former Protecteur being taken apart in Liverpool last year, and it hurt.
"You kind of avoid
looking at it, but if you do look at it, it's a sad thing to see," Senman
said. "Especially the main engineering spaces, like the main engines, the
turbines and the gearbox, things that we watched over so carefully all those
years to make sure everything was done right ... the heart of the ship.
"And then you see these
contractors and they start ripping and tearing things. They have no idea what
they're ripping and tearing, but it's like ripping our hearts out watching that
stuff go.
"Seeing the main gear
wheel on the jetty in Liverpool from the Protecteur ... it's quite sad, quite
shocking to see, because some of that gearing is as pristine as it was when
that ship was built."
Source: local
xpress. 05 August 2017
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