A rusted, listing, and derelict ship that has been sitting in Lake St. Louis for more than five years will finally be removed.

Federal Transportation Minister Marc Garneau announced Thursday that the federal government will pay for the Kathryn Spirit to be chopped up and hauled away as scrap.

Beauharnois Mayor Claude Haineault was thrilled.

“Absolutely good news for us, and for Beauharnois and for the population all around here. The dismantling of the Kathryn Spirit is what we need for six years now,” he said.

The first step will be the construction of a massive dike to isolate the ship from the lake, and Excavation Rene St-Pierre, the company that first brought the ship to Beauharnois, will get $7.9 million for the job.

The Kathryn Spirit was brought to the shores of Beauharnois in September 2011 with a plan to break it up.

When the provincial government denied Excavation Rene St-Pierre permission to do so, the ship was sold to a Mexican company named Reciclajes Ecologicos Maritimos, which intended to bring it back to Mexico.

It nearly left in 2013, but the tug that was supposed to tow it was stopped in Halifax and impounded with the crew living in terrible conditions

Most of the potentially contaminating material was removed in 2013, but nothing has been done since then, and about a year ago this company went bankrupt and abandoned the ship.

This year the ship began to list, and although inspections showed it was not in danger of becoming an immediate environmental threat, it still is a problem.

"The priority for the Coast Guard is to isolate the site from the environment," said Julie Gascon of the Coast Guard.

To that end a large berm will be built around the vessel, and that work will be done by the St. Pierre Group.

"They've been living with that situation and now they're the company that's on the site," said Gascon. "They had the expertise, they had the know-how, and it's the best way to go ahead to get this done."

Construction work on the dike is due to begin in December.

In the next few months the federal government will tender a contract to break up the ship and haul it away.

Dismantling the ship should begin next spring.