A backlog of vessels on the St. Lawrence Seaway is expected to be cleared sometime Friday (July 16) as the waterway has reopened to traffic.
The St. Lawrence Seaway Management Corp. announced Thursday that vessel traffic on the seaway’s South Shore Canal was to resume at 4 p.m. ET, following almost three days of work to clean up a spill from a bulker’s punctured fuel tank.
A total of 17 vessels were lined up to move through the canal as of Thursday afternoon, the SLSMC said in a release.
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“A series of booms continue to isolate the banks of the canal from the navigation channel which, combined with a reduced rate of speed imposed temporarily on all traffic, ensures that efforts to remediate the banks continue to advance smoothly.”
According to the seaway management agency, the fuel spill began Monday evening when the Richelieu, one of eight Canadian-flag bulk carriers owned by Montreal-based Canada Steamship Lines, lost engine power.
Efforts to halt the boat led to a puncture in a fuel tank, spilling “a quantity of fuel” into the canal.
Booms were deployed and the Cote Ste. Catharine lock sealed to stop the current in the canal and contain the spill near the vessel, the SLSMC said.
The spill’s environmental impact has been “limited,” the management agency said, as waterborne oil was removed through pumping and vacuuming operations, and oil washed to the banks was “for the most part” not absorbed.
The canal’s banks are mostly “rip-rap,” or man-made rock walls, making the fuel accessible for cleanup.
Also, the SLSMC said, a “small number” of birds were soiled but were attended to by specialists. Work continues to “remediate and restore the local environment.”
“We regularly engage in emergency response exercises with stakeholder agencies, and the effective response to this incident provides tangible proof that collectively, we were up to the challenge,” SLSMC CEO Richard Corfe said in the release.
Export grain is one of the main commodities handled on the seaway, along with iron ore, coal, limestone and “general cargo” such as heavy machinery and iron and steel products. The waterway’s annual traffic in recent years is over 180 million tonnes.
According to the SLSMC, a single seaway-size vessel moves enough wheat to make bread for every resident of New York City for nearly a month.
