After years of complaints from local authorities, the federal government has finally awarded a contract and set some deadlines for the dismantling of the Kathryn Spirit, the listing and rusted bulk carrier which has been anchored at Beauharnois on the South Shore for six years.
Two companies will share the $11-million scrap job. They'll also remove the temporary embankment built last year to isolate the ship from the ecosystem around it.
The federal Transport Ministry says the dismantling should be completed by the fall of 2018, the embankment removed that winter and the site returned to the way it used to be by the fall of 2019.