BRUNSWICK, Ga. — New details show the effort to stop the planned salvage of the Golden Ray cargo ship. The Golden Ray's previous salvage team claims cutting the ship into large pieces could cause an environmental catastrophe.
On Friday, First Coast News reported the former contractor filed a lawsuit in federal court to stop the current new plan from happening. Jacksonville-based maritime attorney Rod Sullivan says he does not believe a judge will stop the salvage operation, which could start moving as early as this week.
St. Simons Island property owners like Chuck Russell are ready to see the ship go.
“That’s an engineering feat that they can pull it off,” Russell said.
The lawsuit claims the U.S. Coast Guard violated the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 by letting the ship’s owners choose a different salvage company.
DonJonSMIT says since September 2017, DonJonSMIT was designated as the approved salvage and marine firefighter provider under the Golden Ray’s non-tank vessel response plan.
In November 2019, DonJonSMIT submitted a plan to remove small sections of the ship weighing approximately 600 tons each to remove each of the vehicles on board.
New documents show the company asked the U.S. Coast Guard why T&T Salvage’s plan was chosen. In an email to U.S. Coast Guard commanders, DonJonSMIT’s vice president asks why the federal on-scene coordinator deviated from the vessel response plan. They claim that T&T was allowed to present to the Unified Command while DonJonSMIT never got the opportunity.
“Nothing has been told to us indicating disappointment in our performance beyond the Clubs insistence our plan ‘doesn’t give them what they want,’” an email said.
DonJonSMIT claims that in two previous wrecks of the Tricolor and Baltic Ace, large section removals failed in keeping pollutants out of the water. They say they remain ready to implement their small section removal if called upon.
In response to DonJonSMIT’s email, a Coast Guard commander wrote that the federal on-scene coordinator can approve a ship owner's request to seek another resource provider if it would lead to a more successful response.
“One party wants to use a saw, one wants to use scissors,” Sullivan said.
Sullivan does not believe the judge will rule in DonJonSMIT’s favor. He says cutting the ship into smaller pieces would make the process longer and could expose empty fuel tanks to the environment. He also thinks the planned environmental protection barrier can contain pollutants from the ship and the 4,200 cars still on board.
Sullivan wonders if the legal claim is sour grapes.
“They lost the contract so they’re using the environmental aspect to try and win the contract or part of the contract back,” Sullivan said.
T&T Salvage is expected to carry out its plan, approved by the Coast Guard.
residents can expect work on the protective barrier to begin as soon as this week.
“I just look forward to it being over, get it over with and just move on,” Russell said.
We reached out to the Coast Guard and it says it is aware of the lawsuit but can’t comment. The Unified Command for the St. Simons response says work will begin the environmental protection barrier as soon as this week.