Oil removal work begins on 'fragile' Second World War-era wreck in coastal B.C.

An oil salvage operation is underway on the fragile wreckage of a U.S. army transport ship that sank almost 80 years ago off coastal British Columbia in a race to head off an eruption of thousands of litres of oil that a coast guard official says is "near imminent."

An oil salvage operation is underway on the fragile wreckage of a U.S. army transport ship that sank almost 80 years ago off coastal British Columbia in a race to head off an eruption of thousands of litres of oil that a coast guard official says is "near imminent."

The Canadian Coast Guard said the 77-metre-long Brigadier General M.G. Zalinski has been burping up "slow but consistent drops of oil" since the fall of 2022 at the shipwreck site in Grenville Channel, part of the Inside Passage off northern B.C.

Jeff Brady, superintendent of marine environmental hazard response in the west for the coast guard, said the discovery comes after 44,000 litres of heavy fuel oil and 319,000 litres of oily water was successfully extracted from the sunken ship in 2013.

An assessment done by the coast guard last year suggests about 27,000 litres of oil remains within the ship, which sits on a rocky shelf about 40 meters below the surface.

Brady said the oil removal work is urgent.

“We're really well aware of that the marine mammals in the area, aquaculture, all the migratory birds.

“And what we do know about the wreck is that it's in a deteriorated state, and it's near imminent that we're going to have a more significant release from it, and that's why we're aggressively launching this operation,” said Brady.