News-Times Whidbey
WEDNESDAY, May 30, 2012 | Vol. 113, No. 43 | www.whidbeynewstimes.com | 75¢
LIVING: La Mancha comes to Playhouse. A17
Polluting boat may be raised Wednesday By JUSTIN BURNETT Staff reporter
A 128-foot derelict crab boat that sank in Penn Cove more than two weeks ago could be raised today, according to officials with the state Department of Ecology. The first of two large cranes that will be used to pick up the vessel arrived Monday. Dive crews worked through the holiday weekend and into this week to prepare it for lifting. As of press time Tuesday, however, state Department of Ecology spokesman Curt Hart said there were still a lot of moving pieces and unknowns, which made a Wednesday start date a best-case scenario. “The best I can give you is that the soonest it will happen is tomorrow,” Hart said. The Deep Sea had been anchored illegally for months in Penn Cove, west of the Coupeville Wharf and just outside the mussel rafts, when the vessel caught fire and sank May 13. While thousands of gallons of fuel were siphoned from the ship’s tanks — there was supposed to be less than 100 gallons aboard — an estimated 1,500 more gallons were recovered from the surface with special skimming boats and absorbent pads. The leaking resulted in the closure of private and commercial shellfish harvesting, beginning May 15.
Many ways to remember
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A combination of fun, community sharing and solemn ceremonies were all part of Memorial Day weekend on Whidbey Island. Above, Meg Hilkey walks with Bear the miniature horse, who’s pulling Christina Hilkey in a carriage. They were representing the Coupeville Library in the Coupeville Memorial Day Parade Saturday, with scores of participants and several thousand spectators under sunny skies for a day of family togetherness, patriotism and honoring our nation’s war dead. In a solemn ceremony at right, Jerry Suit, American Legion chaplain, and Julia Dietz, Auxiliary President, walk toward a grave to lay flowers during Monday’s rainy ceremony at Maple Leaf Cemetery in Oak Harbor, sponsored by the American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars and Fleet Reserve. For more about the day in Coupeville please turn to page 3 of today’s Whidbey News-Times. For more about the ceremony at Maple Leaf turn to page 7.