Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, June 16, 1990 TAG: 9006160350
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: B5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: GALVESTON, TEXAS LENGTH: Medium
The Coast Guard boosted its estimate of the amount of oil released into the Gulf of Mexico to 4.3 million gallons, making it the nation's fifth largest spill.
The fire was extinguished Friday afternoon, but officials said they would have to wait at least 24 hours for the ship to cool before removing the remaining oil. The ship could catch fire again, Coast Guard Petty Officer Todd Nelson said.
The Coast Guard had said the first tar balls from the leaking Norwegian supertanker could wash ashore late Friday on Bolivar Peninsula, across the bay from Galveston Island. But county officials said they had no unusual reports of oil on shore.
"We don't anticipate the oil will come before Sunday. We're prepared," said Galveston City Manager Doug Matthews.
Crews on four fireboats also continued spraying water on the 886-foot ship, which exploded and caught fire late last Friday, 57 miles off Galveston. Gray smoke spewed from the rear section of the vessel.
More than two dozen smaller boats used skimming devices to suck up or corral the rusty brown oil trailing from the tanker. Salvage crews said they had skimmed 146,389 gallons of oil.
The Coast Guard said most of the light African crude evaporated or burned, and less than 22,000 gallons remained in the water.
The Coast Guard would not elaborate on how it reached the 4.3 million gallon estimate for the spill. The spill earlier had been estimated at 3 million gallons.
The worst oil spill in U.S. history was last year when the Exxon Valdez ran aground, spilling nearly 11 million gallons of heavy crude on the Prince William Sound in Alaska.
In the experimental use of the microbes, officials working on a Coast Guard boat mixed the bacteria with sea water and sprayed it on a section of the 30-mile-long slick.
About 100 pounds of microbes were sprayed over an acre in a procedure that lasted about 30 minutes Friday afternoon. Officials will check the area Saturday to see if the experiment was successful.
The process, known as bioremediation, has never been tried on an oil spill in open seas, although lab experiments have been successful, said Texas Land Commissioner Garry Mauro.
Bioremediation has been used for years to clean up hazardous waste sites, treat sewage and wastewater, extract oil from tight geologic formations and clean some rocks on shore after the Exxon Valdez accident, Mauro said.
by CNB