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Good afternoon, and welcome to Globe Climate, a newsletter about climate change, environment and resources in Canada.

In a province with a long and dangerous maritime history, a grounded cargo ship becomes a mammoth cleanup mission, with potential to become an environmental disaster. More on the emergency response in today’s edition.

Now, let’s catch you up on other news.

1. Policy: Ottawa pushes toward scrapping ban on single-use plastic exports
2. Agriculture: U.S. avocado growers hope push for trade walls will bear fruit
3. Future: Dear Gen Z, you’re not watching the world end – you’re about to build a new one
4. Data: Can we predict a white Christmas? A 50-year look at Canada’s snowfall on Dec. 25
5. Weather: Jasper residents had to adjust Christmas plans for snow that shuttered Icefields Parkway

For this week’s deeper dive, a closer look at a ship grounded in western Newfoundland and the impending environmental consequences. Story by Lindsay Jones and photography by Fred Lum.

Three-metre swells crash into the cracked hull of the MSC Baltic III along the west coast of Newfoundland. The 200-metre steel cargo ship lost power in the mid-February during a ferocious blizzard and was packed with hundreds of containers of lumber, textiles, plastic beads, legumes and car parts, plus 1,600 metric tonnes of fuel.

Earlier this year, salvage crews offloaded most of the 470 containers and siphoned out much of the fuel, but now, winter is slowing down what’s considered the longest and largest operation in the history of the Canadian Coast Guard. And the environmental damage is still being monitored.

It’s inevitable that the ship will crack in two this winter, said Bruce English, senior response officer with the federal agency’s Marine Environmental and Hazards Response team. “You’re at the mercy of the environment,” he said. “You can’t haul the vessel in, you can’t put more lines on it. You can’t do anything.”

All of this poses a threat to the marine environment. Oily debris has started to wash ashore. Plus, some of the 46 remaining shipping containers contain substances harmful to marine life such as flaxseed oil.

On days when the wind is less vengeful, salvage crew members can scrape hardened heavy oil lining the walls of six massive fuel tanks. Already, sticky lumps of the hardened oil have been recovered from the shoreline by workers who patrol Cedar Cove and the surrounding coastline daily to look for potential signs of pollution.

So far, 100 oil tar balls have been collected – ranging from the size of a fingernail to a Ping-Pong ball – more than 300 tar coats, and oil stuck to the surfaces of rocks and pebbles on the shore. After a November storm brought waves crashing over the deck of the nine-storey ship, crews recovered about 30 garbage bags of debris coated in oil.

Eventually, after the cleanup, a salvage company will be hired to remove the vessel, a project that will likely include dismantling the ship in pieces, English said.

But in the meantime, people who rely on marine life and fisheries are hoping for a smooth cleanup, and that their communities won’t be touched by further environmental damage.

You can read the full story by Lindsay Jones and see more pictures from Fred Lum.

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