No major spill reported at vessel, which caught fire and capsized Apr. 21 northeast of Kodiak Island, found aground on Katmai's coast May 7.
Staff from Katmai National Park and Preserve were on the scene of the wrecked fishing vessel Northern Pride Monday. KDLG’s Dave Bendinger has more:
Audio transcript below ...
According to KMXT, the 82-foot fishing tender Northern Pride was enroute from Seward to Kodiak on April 21 when it caught fire and capsized northeast of Marmot Island. The three crew abandoned ship and were rescued by the Coast Guard, and the Northern Pride was believed to have sunk. The Coast Guard spotted it drifting about a week later, and then it appeared hard aground on Katmai’s Shelikof Strait coastline last Thursday.
Katmai’s Chief of Resource Management Troy Hamon was at the scene of the wreck Monday:
"The Northern Pride is reduced basically just the hull, upside down, stranded on the beach. The structure above the hull, the superstructure, appears to be, in part, in the water. The tops of it are visible at low tide," said Hamon.
To Hamon’s eye the ship looks like it came further apart after it beached. He says the nearby beach is littered with debris, mainly lumber and other parts from the wooden vessel. There were also some five gallon buckets of oil washed ashore:
"Most of them still sealed," he said. "I think we only found two buckets that had holes punched in them, and one of them had its lid off and was empty."
The Northern Pride had a maximum capacity of 4900 gallons of diesel, 200 gallons of hydraulic fluid, and 200 gallons of lube oil, but it’s unclear how much fuel remained on board by the time it beached on Katmai’s coast. According to NPS, an initial aerial survey spotted a small sheen emanating from the vessel. But from the assessment on the site Monday, Hamon says they only found a few traces of spilled oil, and little if no further harm:
"There was some sand that clearly smelled of petroleum and was strongly saturated with it," said Hamon. "But we didn't find any animal carcasses that had been oiled. We found one crab in the tide line that was dead, but there was no smell of oil, and no oil on it."
The Northern Pride's owner is required to see that it is salvaged, and a company has been hired to get it done. Several agencies, including Katmai and the Coast Guard, will assist in and oversee salvage operations.