Guest Speaker Dec 5, 2013 Roger Girouard

Posted by Marina Lamb

on Dec 05, 2013

At Thursday's meeting (Dec 5th), Rotary members enjoyed the presentation made by Roger Girouard, the Assistant Commissioner of the Canadian Coast as he spoke about the oil salvage project on the MV Zalinski.

The MV Zalinski was built in Seattle in 1946 and grounded on the west side of Grenville Channel on Sep 29th, that same year. It wasn't until 2003 before the vessel was refound, upside down 100 feet below the surface, and since then has been monitored closely by the Coast Guard. A decision was made to recover the bunker fuel to help keep the coast as clean and pristine as possible.

Working with many partners, the salvage barge arrived on Oct 27, 2013 and starting pumping the fuel on Nov 19th. After retrieving 40 tonnes of bunker fuel, the job was completed on Dec 2nd.

The operation was a huge success due to the hard work by all parties involved. Congratulations.