2nd salvage ship arriving next week in Tubbataha

From the Manila Standard Today (Feb 9): 2nd salvage ship arriving next week in Tubbataha

A second salvage ship is set to arrive next week to help the Smit Boreo remove the USS Guardian, an American minesweeper that ran aground in the protected Tubbataha Reef on Jan. 17, the Coast Guard said Friday.

Coast Guard commandant Rear Admiral Rodolfo Isorena said US Navy officials informed Task Force Tubbataha that they have commissioned the MT Jascon, an 800-ton Malaysian ship, to lift heavy parts of the US minesweeper, which will be chopped into pieces by the Smit Boreo, a ship-borne crane.

“The ship will arrive from Singapore six days from now.

But even before that, we could start salvage operations on the upper deck, mast and smokestack,” said Coast Guard chief information officer Lt. Cdr. Armand Balilo.

Balilo said Jascon will arrive first in Puerto Princesa in Palawan to undergo inspection before proceeding to Tubbataha Reef.

As of Friday, the Smit Borneo from the Smit Company of Singapore was still looking for a spot to drop its two anchors where they would not damage the reef.

Smit Borneo will position itself 10 meters away from the protected marine sanctuary, officials said.
“The weather has improved and should be fine for the next two to three days, so we may be able to start the actual salvaging soon,” Balilo added.

Task Force Tubbataha head and Coast Guard Palawan district commander Enrico Efren Evangelista said the crane ship will not pose any danger to the reef and its corals.

“It will only touch the sandy bottom of the ocean floor and not touch any coral,” he said.

Reports said the US government was paying Smit Borneo $25 million for the operation.

Coast Guard officials said the salvage operations would be conducted in close coordination with the US Navy, as set down in the alvage plan approved by the Tubbataha Reef Area Management Board.
Transportation Secretary Joseph Emilio Abaya ordered the Coast Guard to send two teams of divers to check the reef and the position of the salvage ship.

The Task Force aims to finish the salvaging operation by April 9.

The USS Guardian will be cut into three or four sections made up of the mast, stack, engine and hull, officials said.

A US marine biologist estimated that 4,000 square meter were destroyed by the grounded minesweeper. The Coast Guard said, however, that a more accurate assessment could be made only after the USS Guardian was removed.

Also on Friday, the leftist Anakpawis party-list group and an alliance of fisherfolk, Pamalakaya, urged the Palace to disclose more details of the US salvage plan and what it would do to repair the damage to the protected marine park.

“The Filipino public wants to know how the US government would clean its mess in Tubbataha. It is the duty of the Philippine government to explain why the salvage plan is okay and it should also disclose the details of the salvage operations,” Anakpawis vice chairman Fernando Hicap said in a statement.

Hicap said the plan was only presented to a few people in the government and not to affected sectors like the fisherfolk and concerned groups like marine scientists and environmental experts.

“We believe the plan was presented over a cup of coffee just to inform the Philippine government that this was the plan of Washington… and that the President of the Philippines and other local officials can’t say no to imperial America’s salvage plans for the USS Guardian,” the Anakpawis official said.

Last week, Hicap joined Pamalakaya vice chairman Salvador France and Pamalakaya-Southern Tagalog Pedro Gonzalez in delivering a letter of complaint to the Justice Department asking it to file criminal and other appropriate cases against US Navy officials and the 79 crew of the 130 ton minesweeper that damaged the protected reef.

http://manilastandardtoday.com/2013/02/09/2nd-salvage-ship-arriving-next-week-in-tubbataha/