Hi. We're playing tag team with the phone. As Mayor Mattatall said, I am Dylan Heide, the chief administrator officer for the town.
I just want to go a little bit into the background of derelict vessels in our harbour. As the mayor noted, it's one of the best natural harbours. Both Karen and I have been with the town for the past six years, and in that time we've had about half a dozen derelict vessels arrive in our harbour. Generally they have gone to the Shelburne Marine Terminal, which is a divested facility similar to the port in Bridgewater, as noted by Mayor Mitchell. It continues to operate as a commercial facility, heavily used by the local fishery.
We've had vessels of all sorts abandoned. Some have had residual value. Some have not. We have, as the operator of the terminal, had to take action on these vessels. Obviously, the one that is most known is the MV Farley Mowat, which got a considerable amount of media attention. The six vessels prior to that essentially were covered only in the local media and were of concern to residents. Yet those vessels still on occasion caused environmental contamination in our harbour, were significant eyesores, interfered with fisheries operations, and generally impacted the viability of our local port to the extent that over the years it did lose significant business.
That said, we have always taken aggressive legal action and tested the limits of the courts to deal with derelict vessels, which has led to a clear realization on our part as to the necessity of the legislation that the federal government has recently been pursuing. When vessels have had a residual value, we've been more able to dispose of those vessels and recoup some costs, something that has really only been available to us because the vessels have been abandoned at an operating commercial facility with a legal berthage agreement and tariff, not necessarily something available to most communities.
I'll move on to the MV Farley Mowat briefly because it is such a well-known story. The Farley Mowat, as Mayor Mitchell mentioned, like a lot of derelicts, has a storied history. Obviously, it had been seized by the federal government back in 2008 and let go for salvage. In 2014, it made its way into the Shelburne harbour under cover of darkness and without permission. I think this evidence is an important concern around derelict vessels, in that the vessel was derelict when it arrived. It had been removed from the port of Lunenburg halfway through salvage, with the top decks fully removed, and posed an incredible hazard from the moment it arrived. The town took action against the owner of that vessel for several years without success. In the summer of 2015, it sank at the terminal and the Coast Guard refloated the vessel, but it continued to remain at the Shelburne marine terminal until the summer of 2017.
All throughout this period the town was engaged in legal action with the vessel owner, who was known to the town. This evidences the importance of understanding that a derelict vessel may have an owner but the owner may be irresponsible and unable to affect removal or unwilling to affect removal. I should acknowledge that over this period we had significant support from our federal member of Parliament and also from neighbouring communities, including Bridgewater.
In 2017, the vessel was eventually removed and disposed of by the Coast Guard. The town residents and, obviously, the council are very grateful for the federal government's involvement with that vessel; but at the end of the day the three-year fight to get to that point clearly demonstrates the need for legislation.
I'll just hand the phone back over to Karen to make a concluding comment.