MV Miner Cleanup Complete
By Aiswarya Lakshmi
Monday, November 30, 2015
The Cape Breton community is celebrating after the last scraps of a rusting shipwreck were finally hauled from the shores of Scatarie Island.
Nova Scotia Lands has been overseeing the cleanup work removing the final remnants of the ill-fated MV Miner from Scatarie Island off Cape Breton.
"This vessel was a concern for environmental, for safety, for economics,” said Nova Scotia Transportation Minister Geoff MacLellan. “It just didn't belong on the shores of Scatarie."
Antigonish contractor R. J. MacIsaac has removed the last bits of scrap and the workers camp from the shoreline where the bulk carrier ran ashore more than four years ago.
"I'm just closing my eyes and picturing that part of Scatarie back to health, and power and beauty as it was before. We did it," said community advocate Sean Howard.
The MV Miner washed ashore on Scatarie Island in September 2011, and since then, the problem of who's paying for the cleanup has been an issue.
The Nova Scotia government was left to absorb the cost of the cleanup because Transport Canada said the wreck did not present an environmental or navigational hazard.