From: Los Angeles Times
by
A barge loaded with oil sits partly submerged in the Houston Ship Channel.
(Manda Emery / Coast Guard / March 22, 2014)
Oil spilled from a barge in
Galveston Bay in Texas, blocking the busy Houston Ship Channel and
threatening birds at a nearby wildlife sanctuary, officials and
environmentalists said.
U.S. Coast Guard officials said as much as 168,000 gallons of oil might have spilled.
Michael Lambert, spokesman for the Galveston County Office of Emergency Management, called it a “significant spill,” but not based on the amount of oil. Full coverage: Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill “The real issue is that it’s in the ship channel, near environmentally sensitive areas. So there’s an economic impact and an environmental impact,” he told the Los Angeles Times. Crews were skimming oil and laying absorbent booms to contain the spread of the spill, which occurred in the channel that runs between Galveston Island and the Bolivar Peninsula, Lambert said. [Updated, 3:40 p.m. March 23: Containing the spill is likely to take days, he said. Coast Guard Port Capt. Brian Penoyer said at a Sunday news briefing that oil had been spotted a dozen miles offshore in the Gulf of Mexico. He said the spill blocked about about 60 vessels, including cruise ships, from using the channel. http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-galveston-oil-spill-20140323,0,5667259.story#ixzz2wszrOHIy |
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