Over half a decade after first docking near the town of Beauharnois, the abandoned cargo ship the Kathryn Spirit is getting ready to be dismantled.

The construction of a dry dock around the ship is the $8 million first step in a process that is six years in the making.

“Because of the size of the vessel, the biological vulnerability, we began to build an embankment,” said Canadian Coast Guard Superintendent Martin Blouin.

The protective embankment is expected to be completed before water levels rise in March, at which point the actual dismantling will take place. Until then, sensor-equipped cables are being monitored daily, as is the water quality surrounding the site.

The derelict vessel was towed to the area in 2011 when a company bought it, intending to turn it into scrap metal.

Instead, it was soon sold to a Mexican firm that went bankrupt shortly after, leaving the ship in legal limbo and slowly rotting in the waters of Lake St. Louis.

Complicating things is that the ship still contains residual amounts of fuel and other contaminants that officials said posed a risk to the surrounding environment.

In November, the federal government announced a plan to finally dismantle the ship, which is one of an estimated 600 to 700 abandoned boats along Canadian coastlines.