Baltimore Bridge's Weight pins down the Container Ship Dali to the Bottom causing a huge challenge to the salvage efforts

Dali's bow is technically aground in the channel, said Vice Adm. Peter Gautier at a press conference Wednesday, 27 Mar, because of the vast weight of the steel bridge span resting on top. The massive weight pins down the ship to the bottom disabling it for movement.

The wreckage will be transported to a scrapping site at nearby Tradepoint Atlantic, Dredging Contractors of America CEO Bill Doyle told The Maritime Executive. He could not give an exact timeline for the work's completion.

The span is the biggest complicating factor in the salvage, but not the only one. Once it is removed, the response team will have to survey the bottom for debris and determine how entangled the vessel is with the remaining pier structure, Gautier said. There are also about a dozen containers on the bow of the ship that were damaged by the falling bridge, and two more that went into the water. 

National Transportation Safety Board chair Jennifer Homendy said Wednesday that some of the damaged boxes on the bow contained hazardous materials, and a sheen from a containerized cargo release has been observed in the water around the ship. 

The ship has about 1.5 million gallons of fuel oil and lube oil on board, but no signs of petroleum release have been spotted, Gautier said.