New York: A Polish-owned bulker ran aground near the Thousand Islands Bridge system on Monday morning causing shipping to be halted on the St Lawrence Seaway.
The 622-foot freighter Juno (30,185 dwt, built 2011), owned by Poland’s Polsteam, called for assistance around 1am when in the US part of the seaway on its way to Toronto.
US Coast Guard personnel were attending to the incident on the south bank of the river near Alexandria Bay, New York. A Coast Guard spokesman said no cargo or fuel appeared to be lost or spilled. Coast Guard personnel were assessing damage to the vessel pending salvage operations.
The Thousand Islands are an archipelago of 1,864 islands along a 50-mile stretch of the St Lawrence River as it straddles the Canada-US border between the southeast part of the province of Ontario and the northern part of the state of New York.
Freight traffic is busy on the seaway which poses hazards to even the best navigators.
The Thousand Islands Bridge is a system of bridges with two-way, single-lane traffic plus pedestrian paths.
