Latest / THE DAILY BRIEF / This sunken barge leaked oil for 26 years. Then crews raised it from the depths

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This sunken barge leaked oil for 26 years. Then crews raised it from the depths · THE DAILY BRIEF

• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Thirty years ago today, a major international news event took
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: place off the coast of Pei. Crews raised a barge
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: from the ocean floor that had been there for decades.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: It had oil and dangerous chemicals called PCBs on board.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: It was called the Irving Whale sunk. It sunk in
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: bad weather off North Cape in nineteen seventy. Some of
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: its oil spilled when it sank and continue to leak
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: on a daily basis. There were studies and reports and
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: diving expeditions, and the decision was eventually made to raise it.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: That was contentious because of course there were worries that
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: even more oil would spill out of it if it
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: was moved. But on July thirtieth, nineteen ninety six, the
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: barge was lifted out of the water and as you
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: can imagine, CBCPI did extensive coverage. The main reporter was
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: Ian Peatree, now retired. Here's a piece that Ian did
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: recapping the events leading up to the salvage and what
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: happened on that.
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: The weather buoy was the first thing in the water.
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: The weather would be foe and friend throughout the operation.
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: The command ship took up its watch on the site
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: in mid June and the Coast Guard officials went down
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: one more time to see the challenge, with the original
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: yellow paint still visible in what they could see of
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: the hull, looking sound nor more tre Then the bow
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: and nine, the lift barge and home to the diving
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: team arrived. Its anchors had to be precisely moored over
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: the irving whale. Then the real workhorses behind the project.
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: The divers started up diving, sleeping and eating under pressure
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: twenty four hours a day to prevent the bends, welding,
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: taking samples, always watching the clock. Twelve days into July,
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: the weather turned sour. The remnants of Hurricane Bertha blew through,
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: having ten days of winds and waves in its wake.
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: The Coastguard vessel and its frustrated crew had some unwonted
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: shore leaf. Finally, on the twenty third of July, it
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: was back to work, but burdened by some tough questions.
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: Would all the vessels arrive, would the weather turn ugly again?
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: The last two salvage pieces finally limped into Pi waters,
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: the crane that would lift the bow of the barge
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: and the submersible barges that would carry the irving whale.
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: Safely out of the gulf. The divers put on a
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: final push, and on July the twenty fifth, all the
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: pieces were finally in place. It was now time to
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: attach the big slings that would lift the irving whale
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: to the surface. One went on easily, but the stern
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: sling prew stubborn and agonizingly slow to get into place.
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: None Now Coast Guard vessels practiced for the worst, a
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: big oil spill. Time lost all meaning to an exhausted
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: salvage crew. Day and night, they kept working, and the
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: operations chief Captain Bill Dancer could just watch and hope.
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: At five am July the thirtieth, even a calm sea
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: couldn't release the tension. That stern slang still wasn't in place.
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: But two hours later, finally it was.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: Breakfast and even at four seven.
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: And almost immediately the lift began and the moment of
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: truth quickly approached.
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: Thirty four.
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: Little surface struct you're over here, bringing out here, bringing
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: out on us. You're coming out.
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: That's a Rogers twenty there it is. You get sick.
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: He's sir, it's the urban whale. First time seen my
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: man in twenty six years.
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: Just right, you read me yeah, I copy of that head.
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: I want to tell you guys, gonna go real stops
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: ra what does you want to put us on? And
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: let's get some water out of it? We're all stop
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: standing by.
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's go. Wait hey, Johnny, you.
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: Got a torch we can have and we'll get it
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: to you on the corner.
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: We'll set you up.
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: Joke bo and nine, bow and nine. This is the
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: urban whale.
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: That's good here you kids.
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: That nice one.
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: Johnson the swinging mine sign up.
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: He definitely was the for your mind to see this
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: slip of a rustial thing come.
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: Up over the edge. What do you think?
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: I think the unknown looked less menacing in the daylight.
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: The evil spell of the irving whale has finally been
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: broken by big machines, ingenuity, and hard work. It became
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: simply a barge again. Get the water out, and who knows,
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: it might go right back to work. Water contaminated with
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: PCBs would have to be collected and disposed of later.
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: But by Wednesday, July the thirty first, the irving whale
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: was a sea going vessel again, no longer and underwater menace.
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: I was tense today today, today all was tense I mean,
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: this is the day when you can lose it all
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: just for a few hundred jobs when the wind blew up.
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: I am a little bit.
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: Our experience out here is even though it's not predicted
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: to blow up, more lots of times it does headward.
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: That was probably the most difficult period.
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: Once it was on the barge.
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: Then it was great once it had taken the blocks
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: on the barge, and it was even better now that
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: the decksinally empty.
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: It's great. That was Ian Petree from our CBCPI archives
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: from nineteen ninety six. So what happened next, Well, the
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: barge was towed to Halifax to be cleaned up and
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: the remaining oil on board was removed. Cruz found that
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: about one thousand liters had spilled out during the time
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: the barge was underwater. Some of that was still on
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: the ocean floor after it was pulled out, some washed
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: up on shorelines in the Magdalene Islands, for example, there
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: were bags and bags of oil that just got buried there.
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: As to the barge itself, in two thousand and one,
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: Irving Oil actually put it back into operation. It's now
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: known as the Atlantic Sea Lion and is still listed
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: as part of the fleet on the company's website today