VICTORIA - No attempt will be made to raise BC Ferries' sunken Queen of the North or even remove what little oil is now believed to be still on board the ship which is resting upright more than 400 metres below the surface.

The 125-metre-long vessel suffered so much damage when it sank in March 2006 off B.C.'s north coast, slamming into the ocean bottom, that there is probably very little fuel left on board, said BC Ferries spokesman Mark Stefanson.

"So, at the end of the day, unfortunately, we're going to have to leave the vessel where it is -- at the bottom of the ocean.''

Stefanson said the company has been told by the Canadian Coast Guard and two international salvage companies that attempting to recover the oil or the ship may cause worse environmental damage than simply leaving the ferry alone.

An engineering analysis conducted for the coast guard indicated that several of the ship's 10 fuel tanks probably ruptured when it initially struck uninhabited Gil Island about 150 kilometres south of Prince Rupert,

Larry Wilson, who is in charge of the Queen of the North file for the coast guard, said the rest of the tanks either burst from the water pressure as the ship sank, or ruptured when the ship ploughed into the sea bed at an estimated speed of more than 66 kilometres per hour.

"Once we did the technical analysis, once we consulted with various salvage companies and experts in the field, we concluded that the majority of the fuel would have been released at the time of the collision with Gil Island, as well as during the sinking process, which minimizes the environmental risk as the vessel sits now,'' Wilson said in an interview from Vancouver.

Residents of two nearby First Nations communities have had grave concerns about the potential for long-term contamination to the marine environment that they rely.

But Stefanson said monitoring of the wreck site, which began two days after the sinking, has shown nothing more than background levels of contamination for the last year.

He said BC Ferries recognizes the concerns raised in both Hartley Bay and Kitkatla, but said it's "virtually impossible'' to address those concerns because they want to see the Queen of the North brought back to the surface and taken away.

"But a wreck at 1,400 feet (about 425 metres), which is really the depth of the Empire State Building, has never been attempted before anywhere in the world,'' he said.

"So it's humanly impossible to bring that wreck up.''

Ninety-nine passengers and crew were rescued from the sinking ship, but two B.C. residents failed to escape.

A federal Transportation Safety Board report on the sinking is expected later this summer.