NIPIGON — Ontario Provincial Police say motorists can expect delays this week during the removal of a tractor-trailer that veered off Highway 11 and became submerged in Lake Nipigon's Orient Bay on January 13.
The truck and flatbed trailer carrying sheets of aluminum initially stayed on the ice, but broke through and sank in the water the next day.
OPP announced Wednesday that the operation to remove the unit – which requires two cranes and a dive team – was set to begin and could last until Friday.
A temporary by-pass has been put in place to permit the alternating flow of northbound and southbound traffic until extrication is completed.
Alex Bardos of Montreal-based Nishan Transport, which owns the tractor-trailer, estimates the cost of the operation to be over $2 million.
In an interview Tuesday, he told Newswatch the company hired an engineering firm to oversee the removal.
"They're very concerned about not splitting up the unit and causing any more damage...It's quite an intricate removal. They'll lift it as one unit. They're not unhooking it."
Bardos said the ice around the tractor-trailer must also be removed and trucked to the Thunder Bay area for proper disposal because it may contain some spilled diesel fuel.
The truck is a write-off, he said, but he expects the trailer can be put back into service.
According to Bardos, his company did its best the day of the accident to try to get the unit towed off the ice "but we didn't have the permissions required, and the OPP wouldn't allow the towing company to hook up to the truck and pull it off."
Although residents along the shoreline have expressed concern about contamination of the environment by diesel and other fluids, the Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks said last week that water samples showed everything was within government standards.
At the Reflection Lake Resort, less than 70 metres from where the truck lies underwater, owner Lawrence McCollum said Tuesday he remains concerned that oil might end up on the beach.
"That could be a problem for us," he said.
McCollum said there have been eight accidents around the same spot on the highway since last fall.
