Officials have confirmed on Saturday that crews plugged the leaking fuel vent of a barge that overturned south of the Bay Bridge but plan to further inspect the vessel before removing it from the water.
What happened?
Vengeance, a 112-foot freight barge overturned about 12:20 a.m. on Friday amid strong winds, said Sarah Wilson, a Coast Guard spokeswoman.
The construction company hired a crew from Global Diving and Salvage who were to perform an underwater assessment of the barge Saturday as responders devise a method to salvage the barge and begin cleanup operations.
Divers repair fuel vent:
Divers entered the 50-foot deep channel off of Yerba Buena Island on Friday afternoon and closed the barge’s fuel vent, which carried 4,000 gallons of diesel fuel and 300 gallons of hydraulic fluid, Wilson said.
The shoreline does not appear to have been impacted by the leak, Wilson added.
Coastline may have been polluted:
Officials said there was no way to measure how much of the fuel leaked into the bay until crews raise the barge and measure the amount of fuel left inside the vessel. On Friday, crews wrapped 3,000 feet of boom around the barge to contain the spill. Responders planned to deploy more Saturday.
Rough weather blamed for sinking:
The barge carried a crane under a maintenance and engineering contract for BART. Transit officials said it is used for corrosion prevention work on the underwater Transbay Tube rail tunnel connecting Oakland and San Francisco.
Winds from a Thursday night storm reached more than 40 mph, which probably caused the barge to sink, Wilson said. California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Office of Spill Prevention and Response and the San Francisco Department of Emergency Management joined the Coast Guard, BART and Vortex Marine Construction to respond to the spill.
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Source: SFGate
