By SHANNON HAUGLAND
Sentinel Staff Writer
After a week of oil spill containment and cleanup in the area`where a tugboat ran aground in Neva Strait, no visible sheen is seen outside the strait, responders said today.
The accident occurred last Monday after the tug Western Mariner, towing a container barge through Neva Strait, lost steering, causing the barge to collide with the tug. The tug ended up hard aground on the beach and spilling diesel fuel from a punctured tank.
The response has involved state and federal agencies, including the state Department of Environmental Conservation, U.S. Coast Guard, Department of Fish and Game and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. A number of private companies from Sitka and the region went to the accident site, about 17 miles northwest of Sitka, to control the leak, offload the remaining fuel from the tug, deploy containment booms, and skim oil from the water surface.
The Coast Guard said the 32,080 gallons of clean oil remaining in the boat’s tanks were transferred to another vessel, and 11,625 gallons of mixed oil and water were pumped from the grounded vessel.
“Skimming operations recovered an estimated 1,750 gallons of oily water, and 15 cubic yards of saturated absorbents have been generated,” DEC said in Sunday’s situation report. All fuel tanks aboard the Western Mariner have been opened, inspected, and emptied, the agency said.
“An overflight on March 26, 2022, documented a weathered silver sheen isolated to Neva Strait,” the situation report said. (Two days previously a sheen had been observed in Neva and Olga straits, and into Krestof Sound and the north end of the Magoun Islands, but overflights later showed the sheening outside of Neva Strait had dissipated during the day.)
One section of the situation report lists the response related to “resources at risk or affected,” including the herring staging for spawning, humpback whales, porpoises, sea lions, harbor seals, shorebirds and eagles, and said “no impacts to marine mammals or avian wildlife have been reported.”
“The Alaska Department of Health and Social Services and ADEC issued several seafood safety recommendations for herring egg and other subsistence harvests,” DEC said. Sac roe herring fishery openings were held Saturday and Sunday in waters south of the spill site where no sign of oil has been sighted.
Global Diving and Salvage Inc., a private nonprofit spill response company SEAPRO, and the salvage firm Hanson Maritime of Sitka are among the companies responding to the incident.
Officials said only “incidental amounts of lube, hydraulic and GST oil” have been left aboard the Western Mariner, as efforts are made to salvage the vessel.
In other updates, DEC said two layers of containment boom remain around the vessel, but there is no longer enough fuel within the secondary containment to support more skimming operations.
DEC said an additional 500 feet of boom was added Friday to the J hook configurations north and south of the vessel to capture escaping sheen.
As to the salvage of the 83-foot tug, DEC said the tug crew was able to start the starboard generator to provide power to hydraulic systems that will support upcoming efforts to refloat the vessel. Workers from Global Diving and Salvage continued to work on welding repairs to the hull to strengthen temporary patches used to “achieve source control” on Thursday.
Hanson Maritime continued to monitor changes in the boom configurations and the vessel buoyancy.
On Saturday, more responders arrived, including the landing craft Poundstone to provide storage for liquid and absorbent waste. Bulk fuel has been offloaded from the tugboat, and Hanson Maritime has added seawater ballast to maintain its stability since the fuel was removed.
“SEAPRO crew continues to check boom security and pull saturated absorbent materials and replace them as needed,” the situation report says. “Boom anchors on the “J” boom configurations were set and reset to counteract connection losses in heavy tidal currents.”
Some 8,620 feet of SEAPRO boom remains available in Sitka for use as needed, as well as additional materials from state and federal resources, the report says.
The Coast Guard is keeping mariners notified of the situation through a broadcast notice, which is requiring those wishing to come within 100 yards of the tug to request permission, and proceed with caution through the area.
“The notice also informs mariners to transit the area with caution to avoid collision with response vessels and minimize wake to prevent disturbing containment boom due to the response effort,” DEC said.
The Shoreline Cleanup Assessment Technique team saw no sheening on beaches and Magoun Islands Saturday, but DEC noted the team at the Western Mariner’s location saw several dead invertebrates nearby.
“One deceased sea cucumber carcass was opportunistically recovered near the tug’s location. No other impacted or potentially impacted wildlife have been collected or captured,” DEC said.
Plans currently call for Hanson Maritime and Global to continue preparing for salvage operations. SEAPRO will maintain crew on site to tend the containment and J-configuration boom, and environmental shoreline assessments and wildlife observations will continue to assess impacts to the shorelines, DEC said.
