To some, she’s a landmark –
to others, the Kathryn Spirit remains an eyesore, and citizens of Beauharnois
are calling on Ottawa to honour their promise to remove the corroded vessel
from the waters of Lac Saint-Louis.
The ship has been stagnating
on the shore of Beauharnois—30 km from Montreal—for six long years.
A promise made by Transport
Minister Marc Garneau in the fall has come and gone—the ship was slated for
removal by June of 2017, yet it remains in place, without any move by the
federal government.
Officials in Ottawa have put
out a call for tenders for the dismantlement of the vessel, but contracts
aren’t expected to come in until the fall.
Following the bids come more
meetings and work groups, and it’s estimated that the preliminary work will
start at its earliest in the fall of 2018.
From there, it may take a
year to completely dismantle the ship—its completion is slated for fall of
2019.
The Kathryn Spirit was built
in 1967, and was previously owned by Swedish and Norwegian companies, used for
bulk transport of commodities on the Great Lakes and the Saint-Lawrence seaway.
In 2011, the vessel was sold
to Groupe St-Pierre for scrap. Facing opposition from the municipality about
moving the ship, Groupe St-Pierre withdrew from their contract. In 2012, an
American-owned, Bolivian-tagged tugboat was hired to pull the Kathryn Spirit to
Mexico, but the boat was detained in Halifax for safety reasons and “poor
living conditions.”
The crew was repatriated
using charitable donations, and the ship remained moored—now tipping at a
noticeable angle—on the shores of Beauharnois.
Plans to tear apart the
Kathryn Spirit stalled when environmental groups said dismantling it would
contaminate nearby land and water.
Many have feared that toxic
material—including residual fuel and other contaminants onboard the ship—could
leak into Lac Saint-Louis and contaminate Montreal’s supply of drinking water.
A protective dam was built
around the ship last year, but the wall was no match for this spring's
flooding. Those floods also interfered with the construction of a dry dock that
began in January.
Mayor Claude Haineault is
beyond frustrated.
“It’s unbelievable that the
government authorized this ship to be transported there, said Haineault.
The ship was supposedly
authorized to cross at the Ste. Catherine locks—not at the Beauharnois locks.
“It’s easy to understand
that the ship will stay in Lac Saint-Louis—there’s no place in Lac Saint-Louis
to receive this kind of wreck. How come the government authorized that?” he
said.
Source: 01 August 2017
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