The St. Lawrence seaway is officially re-opened to commercial freighter traffic after the Coast Guard allowed vessels to go through the Sainte Catherine locks late Thursday afternoon.
The canal was closed Monday night when the Canada Steamship Lines Richelieu had engine troubles, and ended up running over its own anchor. The vessel's fuel tank was punctured, spilling thousands of litres of bunker fuel into the waterway.
Jack Meloche, part of the Seaway management team, says his agency's next job is to get the Richelieu out of the canal since the gash in the freighter's hull has been repaired,
"We'll have a tug up, and we'll get the Richelieu out of the shipping lane, tug-assisted all the way to the Port of Montreal," said Meloche.
For several days crews from Environment Canada, the Seaway authority, and other agencies have been trying to control the spill by using booms and sucking the oil off the water.
"I'm sure that we will be able to clean under the surface and on the shoreline," said Sonia Laforet from Environment Canada. "The penetration of the oil is not that deep."
While the surface of the water is now free of oil, a tarry mess coating 3 km of shoreline poses a danger to wildlife.
Several ducks have already been taken to a veterinary school in St. Hyacinthe to be cleaned up after they became coated in oil, but veterinarian Guylene Seguin says the ducks will recover.
"They were quite oiled but their physical condition was good. They were in good physical shape," Seguin said.
Cleanup crews will spend the weekend on the water repairing damage, and evaluating whether any more wildlife has been affected.
