Crews make plans to pump fuel from sunken tug on B.C. central coast
BELLA BELLA, B.C. — While salvage and clean-up experts assess a sunken tug off British Columbia’s central coast near the Great Bear Rainforest, the Transportation Safety Board announced Monday it will look into what happened.
The board said it will gather information and conduct interviews with crew members for its assessment of what went wrong with the 30-metre Nathan E. Stewart.
A situation report on the cleanup said officials were still making plans to remove more than 200,000 litres of diesel fuel still aboard the tug. The report was issued by the federal and provincial governments, the local First Nation and the tug’s owner, Texas-based Kirby Corp.
The tug was pushing an empty barge when it ran onto some rocks last Tuesday at the mouth of Seaforth Channel, about 20 kilometres west of Bella Bella.