The U.S. Coast Guard said it was responding to an oil spill in the Mississippi River after a dredging vessel capsized in the vicinity of mile marker (MM) 85, near Meraux, Louisiana, on Monday morning.
“The reported maximum capacity aboard the vessel is 5,500 gallons of diesel and 100 gallons of hydraulic oil. The discharge amount is unknown but it has been contained,” the Coast Guard said in a statement.
Coast Guard Sector New Orleans Incident Management Division is coordinating with Wood Resources in overseeing the response and has recovered more than 3,360 gallons of oily water mixture, it added.
The waterway from MM 81 to MM 86 was closed for eight hours, but has since reopened with restrictions in place in order to facilitate recovery operations. There were no immediate reports of any impact to wildlife.
Source: Hellenic Shipping News
