Americas News
Notorious 1970s Canadian Shipwreck Still Leaking Bunkers
The infamous oil tanker Arrow, which ran aground near Canada's Cape Breton coast in 1970 and now lies in two pieces, is still leaking oil, local media reports.
A Transport Canada pollution surveillance aircraft spotted a 20 litre oil sheen in the vicinity of the wreck on August 28 and later discovered the oil was seeping from a crack in one of the Arrow's decks.
Ryan Green, acting superintendent of environmental response for the Canadian Coast Guard, said, "That's what we've been patching this week: it's like a diver's rubber suit — neoprene-style patch — probably 12 feet long and about eight feet wide and held down by a steel frame, like a picture frame."
The Department of Fisheries and Oceans is currently formulating a pumping plan to remove any remaining oil.
The Arrow spilled about 10,330 tons of fuel and coated 120 kilometres of shoreline with sludge when it ran aground on Cerberus Rock, and the accident caused the federal government to develop spill response policies that are standard today.
The vessel had been under charter to Imperial Oil Ltd. and carrying 10 million litres of bunker C bound for a paper mill.
Green says the leaked oil has damaged local fishing lines, and he attributes the recent leakage to strong northeasterly winds that pushed waves repeatedly up against the vessel.
The last cleanup of an historic shipwreck in Canada occurred in 2013, when the Canadian Coast Guard removed hundreds of tonnes of bunker from the U.S. Supply Ship Brigadier General M.G. Zalinski, which sank off the north coast of British Columbia in 1944.
