Environmental protection vital in Golden Ray wreck removal

Covid pandemic adds to salvage challenges

American Salvage Association outlines the additional challenges coronavirus risk mitigation generates, while potentially hampering emergency response

As the US salvage industry tackles one of the largest projects in its history, salvors are being increasingly challenged by coronavirus-induced restrictions.

Salvors are progressing on the salvage of car carrier wreck Golden Ray in St. Simons Sound, Georgia, by cutting section seven from the remains.

While this salvage continues, American Salvage Association (ASA) president Lindsay Malen-Habib* says salvors are having to overcome more than just the technical and environmental challenges of these projects.

The coronavirus pandemic has particularly impacted North American operations, where infections and deaths are the highest seen worldwide. To mitigate the risks, companies need to develop different ways to maintain safety on vessels.

US Coast Guard (USCG) guidelines are being followed to prevent infections breaking out, protecting mariners and others involved in salvage projects.

Ms Malen-Habib says Covid has meant additional safety standards and protocols are required, with one of the biggest challenges being social distancing during salvage.

“Covid forces us into new ways of working and compliance,” she explains. “We need to follow mandates to mitigate risk.” This includes providing masks to salvage personnel to wear on board vessels, including maritime casualties. There is extra risk analysis, regular testing, and additional equipment requirements to consider.

Some of these challenges are derived from USCG’s requirements for all personnel on board vessels to have merchant mariner credentials.

“But what if we need to add more people on vessels?” Ms Malen-Habib asks. This could include fire-fighters from local ports, naval architects or engineering specialists, she says. These personnel may not be allowed on board vessels if they do not have sufficient marine credentials.

ASA has had several virtual conversations with the USCG and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration about this. ASA also has a safety and standards committee looking at safety protocols.

Ms Malen-Habib says there are ongoing discussions with USCG to review the wording of rules to enable greater flexibility of the people allowed on board vessels for salvage operations. She says salvage companies can overcome the extra challenges Covid throws at them.

“There are restrictions, but salvors are logistics experts,” she continues. “We respond to maritime casualties in various locations and to natural disasters in the US, keeping harbours, ports and other infrastructure clear.”

Ms Malen-Habib explains some of the ways salvors have overcome the logistical and environmental challenges in these projects.

“Salvage involves a tremendous amount of calculated risk, and dangerous work in remote locations and challenging environments. We need to work together to ensure safety for personnel and crews.”

This can include setting up night and day shifts for responders, providing good eating and sleeping accommodation on site, controlling any Covid outbreaks on projects and preventing the virus spreading on to vessels.

“We are working together as an industry to get over the challenges,” says Ms Malen-Habib, who is also client services manager at Resolve Marine.

She refers to Resolve’s response to a Hoegh car carrier fire in Jacksonville, Florida in Q4 2020 as an example of how the industry worked together safely.

The OPA-90 salvage and marine fire-fighting (FiFi) responder tackled a fire on a 4,900-car equivalent vessel at the Blount Island Marine Terminal in Jacksonville. FiFi-class tugs were first on site to contain the vessel fire. They were assisted by local fire-fighters using dockside lorries and fireboats.

“We mobilised people and equipment from other states to Jacksonville to tackle this casualty,” says Ms Malen-Habib. Once the fire was extinguished and the vessel declared safe for entry, salvors removed 1,494 tonnes of heavy fuel oil and 122 tonnes of diesel oil.

On the Golden Ray removal project, salvors resumed cutting section seven of the wreck in early April. Divers successfully placed the new cutting chain into the existing groove on the hull-side of the wreck.

Along the deck-side of the wreck, response engineers established a new cut line because underwater interference had prevented divers from inserting the chain into the existing cut groove.

Responders continue to periodically pause cutting operations to inspect equipment, adjust when necessary and to monitor the wreck through sensors and hydrographic surveys to confirm it remains stable.

Salvors were also planning to cut between sections three and four. During early April, technicians inspected cuts along the projected groove during pre-cutting operations.

On another part of the project, section two was loaded on to barge Julie B in the Port of Brunswick and was towed by 2000-built Crosby Tug’s Kurt J Crosby to a recycling facility in Louisiana.

* Lindsay Malen-Habib was speaking during the Tugs Towboats and Barges virtual conference in March 2021 as president of the American Salvage Association

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