Salvage workers are getting the cruise ship Costa Concordia ready for its final voyage.
Thirty tanks filled with air will lift the shipwreck off the seabed next month so it can be towed away and dismantled. Italian officials have said the Costa Concordia will be scrapped at a salvage yard at the port in Genoa, Italy. Ironically, the port is the headquarters of Costa Cruises.
Officials are hoping to start towing the ship on July 20 to Genoa, where the ship will be dismantled and recycled, according to a report by Voice of Russia.
Although that development, two years after the calamitous and fatal wreck, would be significant, a new technical report prepared by the ship’s parent company, Costa Cruises, said the waters of the Tyrrhenian Sea could be contaminated with chemicals and hydrocarbons as the Costa Concordia is refloated and towed away.
The report seeks to play down possible pollution as “temporary and of little significance,” but the company said it also wants to ensure that nets, skimming machines and other equipment are in place to recover oil and other materials expected to be released from the 950-foot liner when it is moved, according to a report by Britain’s The Telegraph newspaper.
