Salvage firm asks U.S. judge to halt removal of capsized ship

SAVANNAH, Ga. — A maritime salvage company is asking a federal judge to stop the Coast Guard and a rival firm from carrying out their plans to remove a cargo ship that overturned five months ago on the Georgia coast.

The multiagency team overseeing removal of the South Korean freighter Golden Ray recently announced plans to carve the ship into eight giant pieces that would be loaded onto barges using a towering crane in the waters of St. Simons Sound. Removal is to start soon after crews surround the wreck with a large mesh barrier to trap stray debris, expected to take about a month.

The salvage company Donjon-SMIT filed a complaint Thursday in U.S. District Court seeking a judge’s injunction to stop any removal efforts. The company said the Coast Guard violated a 1990 federal law intended to improve oil spill responses by allowing the ship’s owner to drop Donjon-SMIT as its pre-designated salvage responder.

Donjon-SMIT said the ship’s owner, identified in the court filing as GL NV24 Shipping Inc., had rejected its plan to remove the ship “in small sections weighing approximately 600 tons” so crews could systematically remove 4,200 cars still inside the ship’s cargo decks.

The company said the owner instead hired another firm, T&T Salvage, willing to remove the vessel in larger chunks of up to 4,100 tons. The multiagency command team released some details of the plan Feb. 5, but has not said what it intends to do about the cars inside.

“In short, the cars need to be safely removed to avoid environmental disaster,” Donjon-SMIT said in its legal filing.

Campbell Houston, a spokesman for the multiagency command overseeing the salvage operation, referred a reporter seeking comment to the Coast Guard in Miami. A spokesman there, Coast Guard Petty Officer 3rd Class Brandon Murray, said he couldn’t comment on the pending litigation.

T&T Salvage did not immediately reply to an email message seeking comment. A woman who answered the phone at the company’s main office in Galveston, Texas, said no one there could speak to a reporter.

The Golden Ray capsized Sept. 8 in the St. Simons Sound shortly after leaving the Port of Brunswick. All crew members were successfully rescued and the port reopened a few days later.