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The U.S. Navy-contracted Malaysian tug Vos Apollo removes petroleum-based products and human wastewater on January 28 from the mine countermeasure ship USS Guardian, a U.S. Navy minesweeper trapped on a reef off the western Philippine island of Palawan since January 17.

Waves crash against the USS Guardian.

In this undated photo a U.S. Navy diver moves damage control equipment and other materials to be unloaded from the USS Guardian.

The Guardian is shown on the Tubbataha Reef on January 19 in this aerial handout photo from the Philippine military.

Anti-riot police disperse protesters in front of the U.S. Embassy in Manila on Friday, January 25. The Filipinos were demonstrating against the grounded U.S. Navy minesweeper and called for the pullout of American troops stationed in the Philippines. They had splattered the police with paint.

Malaysian tug Vos Apollo, foreground, prepares to help remove fuel from the USS Guardian, while a U.S. Navy boat approaches with a salvage team on Thursday, January 24.

A U.S. Navy salvage assessment team boards the USS Guardian on Wednesday, January 23, in the Sulu Sea.

A member of the Philippine coast guard approaches the USS Guardian on Tuesday, January 22, in a handout picture from the Philippine coast guard.

A diver from the Philippine coast guard measures coral damage on the Tubbataha Reef on January 22 in another handout photo. The reef is a Philippine national park and UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Student activists scuffle with police in front of the U.S. Embassy in Manila during a January 19 protest condemning the minesweeper's grounding.

(CNN) -- Removing a stranded U.S. minesweeper from an environmentally delicate reef off the Philippines may take until April, the state-run Philippines News Agency reported Wednesday, citing the Philippines Coast Guard.

The U.S. Navy is preparing to extract the USS Guardian from the Tubbataha Reef, a Philippine national park and UNESCO World Heritage site where the 224-foot-long ship ran aground on January 17.

The Navy plans to cut the 1,312-ton minesweeper into pieces and then, with the help of two contracted crane ships, lift the pieces and carry them away.

Philippines Coast Guard Rear Adm. Rodolfo Isorena said Wednesday that he hopes the salvaging will begin soon so that further damage to the reef will be limited, the Philippines News Agency said.

One of the crane ships has arrived in the area, about 80 miles east-southeast of Palawan Island in the Sulu Sea, and the other is on its way, the news agency reported.

The ship is estimated to have damaged about 4,000 square meters (about 43,000 square feet) of the reef, the news agency said. Various U.S. officials, including Navy Vice Adm. Scott Swift last month, have apologized to the Philippines for the incident, which the U.S. Navy and the Philippines Coast Guard are investigating.

Philippine officials said last month that the country would seek compensation for reef damage. The U.S. ambassador to the Philippines, Harry Thomas Jr., assured the Philippines on Monday that the United States "will provide appropriate compensation for damage to the reef caused by the ship."

The reef is home to a vast array of sea, air and land creatures, as well as sizable lagoons and two coral islands. About 500 species of fish and 350 species of coral can be found there, as can whales, dolphins, sharks, turtles and breeding seabirds, according to UNESCO.

Originally, only the ship's bow was on the reef, but waves pushed the entire ship onto it. The ship's wood-and-fiberglass hull was penetrated, allowing a significant amount of water into the ship, the Navy said.

Crews have been working to remove hazardous materials from the vessel and anything that could still be useful to the Navy. The Navy has reported no oil slicks; the ship's 15,000 gallons of diesel fuel have been removed.

One of the environmental concerns is that algae will grow on dead or scarred corals, park Superintendent Angelique Songco said.

"Their presence makes it hard for other corals to regenerate as they cover the substrate," Songco wrote in an e-mail to CNN on Wednesday. "We expect an increase in the incidence of grazer fish species in the area that feed on the algae. Hopefully they are hungry enough to control algae populations to enable hard corals (to) take root in the substrate.

"So you see, the balance we have been trying to maintain has been upset. For that particular area at least, coral evolution starts all over again -- but not until salvage operations are over."

The salvage operation also may hurt tourism, because it will happen at the start of the park's main tourism window of March to early June, Songco said.

Songco said she hasn't heard of any pre-booked tourists canceling. But the park, which is celebrating its 25th year, will have to close two of its 15 major diving sites during the operation, she said.

"We will not (be) able to offer divers the full measure of the Tubbataha experience," she said.

CNN's Brad Lendon contributed to this report.