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by pna

At long last, salvaging operations for the grounded cargo ship M/V Ever Transport III off the coast of Dumaguete City have begun after about nine months of waiting since it was pushed ashore by tropical storm Sendong December last year.

Sr. Chief Petty Officer Nelson Simbahon, the newly designated commander of the Coast Guard Station in Dumaguete, on Monday confirmed that salvage operations began Saturday with the M/V Hamako II of the Steel Ray Salvaging Corporation starting to extract whatever items it could retrieve from the half-sunken ship.

The Steel Ray Salvaging Corporation had won the bidding to salvage the cargo ship but operations were stalled in the past months due to certain requirements that had to be complied with.

According to Simbahon, the salvaging company finally submitted the complete requirements this past weekend.

To recall, the M/V Ever Transport III keeled over on its side on the morning of December 17, 2011 as "Sendong" lashed out at Dumaguete and other parts of Negros Oriental, bringing with it strong winds and heavy rains that caused flooding and huge waves.

The Ever Transport III was docked at the Dumaguete port after the Coast Guard declared about two days before the storm hit on that day that all sea vessels were grounded. However, big waves rocked the Ever Transport back and forth against the pier, endangering it, thus the ship was forced to seek shelter somewhere else but stormy weather caused it to run aground close to shore in Canday-ong, Barangay Calindagan of this capital city.

Around 37 people, to include crew members and some passengers, were rescued and safely brought to shore.

The weeks that followed saw crew members and salvage operators working to retrieve empty cases and bottles of beer (the ship’s primary cargo when it was en route to Mindanao), and barrels of bunker fuel, oil and used oil.

Then Dumaguete Station chief, Lt. Commander Agapito Bibat assured that there was no oil spillage even as some barrels of used oil and bunker fuel were missing from an inventory of the grounded ship.

According to Sr. Chief Petty Officer Simbahon, this time, the salvage operations will consist of phases to include the cutting of the ship’s bridge and the retrieval of items inside the ship.

Also, salvage teams will be cutting through portions of the ship to allow access to areas where certain things have to be extracted to ease the weight load of the cargo vessel.

If possible and as originally agreed earlier, the salvage company will try to refloat the Ever Transport III and tow it to a shipyard in Cebu.

The Coast Dumaguete station has given the salvage company until October 5 to finish their operations otherwise they will have to obtain another request for extension of the salvage operations from the main headquarters of the Philippine Coast Guard in Manila.

Simbahon has assured that Coast Guard personnel are on hand to supervise the salvaging operations to ensure that these will not pose a threat to the environment even though he said he believes there will be no oil spillage.

Also, the Coast Guard has required the salvage teams to lay down spill containment booms as a precautionary measure in the event of an oil leak.

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