Seawitch no longer haunts Port of Baltimore

Seawitch no longer haunts Port of Baltimore The U.S. Coast Guard, together with the Maryland Department of the Environment and Maryland Port Administration, has completed the clean-up and recovery of about 100,000 gallons of oil from the sunken cargo vessel Seawitch in the Patapsco River.
   In July 2008, the Coast Guard accessed the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund to pay for the clean-up and recovery operations. The approximate cost of the cleanup was about $12 million, the Coast Guard said.
   Since November 2007, the Coast Guard has overseen continual operations to remove water, oil, concrete and other waste materials for towing the vessel to Sparrows Point in Baltimore for further cleaning and destruction. Once the vessel has been destroyed, the metal will be recycled at the Bethlehem steel mill, the Coast Guard said.
   The Seawitch was a cargo vessel involved in a collision in New York harbor in 1973. The forward part of the ship was relocated to Baltimore where it was used for a ship salvage and scrapping company to store waste materials.