Update on the Texas City “Y” Response in Galveston Bay

The Saturday vessel collision in Galveston Bay (see “Vessel Collision and Spill in Galveston Bay”) that resulted in an oil spill of approximately 168,000 gallons caused the closure of the heavily trafficked Port of Houston for 3 days. As of March 25, limited vessel traffic is now allowed; vessels awaiting transit are being prioritized by the Port Coordination Team. Vessels are being allowed to transit through the Houston Ship Channel and on the Intracoastal Waterway after assessment teams deemed the channel clear. Some vessels have been oiled and will need to be cleaned before they can process. A vessel decontamination plan has been formulated to assist vessels that may have been impacted by oil.

In today’s U.S. Coast Guard news release, news updates include:

• There have been 18 birds confirmed captured and 10 deceased.
• There are approximately 15.5 miles of nonconsecutive impacted shoreline.
• Response personnel have collected approximately 164,892 gallons of oil-water mixture. They have also collected 852 bags of solid waste. A majority of the solid waste was collected from Big Reef, Pelican Island, East Beach and Texas City Dike. The waste products include oiled debris, oil sand mixture and snare boom.
• More than 71,000 feet of containment boom have now been deployed on waters surrounding the incident site and along sensitive shorelines in the area.  An additional 232,600 feet of boom has been staged for possible deployment and another 5,400 feet ordered.
• Approximately 70 response vessels are actively working to skim and recover oil with more than 539 personnel actively on-scene and another 218 responding in the incident command post.
• Changing currents, winds and weather conditions have necessitated response officials to further extend oil recovery plans into the Gulf of Mexico and south along Galveston Island.

NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration has responded to many incidents in this area of heavy ship traffic.  Notably, In July 1990, a collision in the Houston Ship Channel involving the Greek Tank Vessel Shinoussa with the tank barges Apex 3417 and Apex 3503 resulted in a major spill of approximately 16,500 barrels (approximately 700,000 gallons) of oil. The story of that is at Incident News: Apex 3417 Barge, Apex 3503 Barge.  Information on the later assessment and restoration is at http://www.darrp.noaa.gov/southeast/apexgal/admin.html.

NOAA is providing scientific support to the U.S. Coast Guard, including forecasts of the floating oil movement, shoreline assessment, information management, overflight tracking of the oil, weather forecasts, and natural and economic resources at risk. Marine mammal and turtle stranding network personnel are also standing by. The NOAA Weather Service Incident Meteorologist is on-scene, as are additional NOAA personnel. Natural resource damage assessment personnel will be at Galveston Bay to initiate studies that could be used to identify injured resource and restoration needs.