New delay in removal of sunken ship at Penn Cove

Fans of Penn Cove mussels will have to wait as long as
another week before they can taste their favorite local
shellfish. That’s because efforts to remove a sunken ship
that’s leaking oil off Whidbey Island have been delayed.

Right now, when you take a seat at Toby’s Tavern, in
Coupeville and order Penn Cover mussels, you’re actually
getting Mediterranean mussels from Quilcene.

The Penn Cove mussels are a customer favorite,
but Toby’s cook Samantha Alvarez says it’s not because of
the way she prepares them. “The mussels are good because
they come from Penn Cove Shellfish.”

Recreational and commercial harvest of world famous Penn
Cove mussels are off limits and have been since a derelict
crab boat burned and sank in nearby Penn Cove earlier this
month.

The sunken crab boat Deep Sea leaked thousands of
gallons of oil and continues to leak as a salvage crew
prepares to raise the derelict vessel.

Fortunately, there’s been no damage to the mussel farm
operated by Penn Cove Shellfish, and general manager Ian
Jefferds, has a message to his customers:

“Number one, the mussels are clean and weren’t
contaminated and I would go out and eat them right now. I
just can’t harvest them here and sell them to you yet.
Everything up here is good and well, we just need to have
access to them,” said Jefferds.

That can’t happen until this sunken boat is
removed.

“One of the things being brought up here [to
Coupeville] is one of the larger crane barges in Puget
Sound, and they’ve got a pretty tight schedule,” said Curt
Hart, with the State Department of Ecology. “Plus, there’s
this unknown, nobody’s done this before. This is the first
time a vessel like this has been salvaged from Penn Cove
this close to the mussel rafts, [and] they’re going to
have to bring up a vessel that’s also leaking oil and may
have other oil products on it.”

When the boat sank, it dumped hatch covers and
other debris into the silt before the vessel settled on
its port side. Dive teams must remove the obstacles and
dig out truck loads of sand and silt from beneath the ship
so they can attach ropes and cables to lift the old crab
boat to the surface. And then, there’s the fuel tanks.

“Could there be any leaks of fuel? We know there’s
continuous leak of fuel right now. We don’t know if it has
any kind of substantial amount of fuel still left in it,”
said Hart.

Back at Toby’s Tavern, customers Dana and Madonna
Azure are concerned about the salvage operation.

“At first, we thought it was our mini Valdez,”
said Dana.

“But they still don’t know how much fuel is left and they
still say oil is leaking into the cove, so it’s really a
big deal,” added Madonna Azure.

“If this baby breaks in half when they’re lifting
it, we’re screwed,” concluded Dana Azure.

At Penn Cove Shellfish, Jefferds knows this was a
close call.

“I don’t know that they get much closer. Had it
been something as devastating as heavy bunker oil, that
would be extremely devastating, so we dodged a bullet on
this one, I think,” said Jefferds.

Because of complications preparing the sunken ship
and the availability of that 300 foot crane barge, the
state Ecology Department has announced that it will be
Sunday, at the earliest, before the derelict ship can be
raised and removed.