9,000 gallons of petrol spill into Houston Ship Channel after Texas tanker collision
- No injuries reported in second incident to hit shipping lane in two months
One barge was damaged and another capsized spilling about 9,000 gallons of petrol into the Houston Ship Channel near Bayport, Texas, following a collision on Friday with a 230m tanker, officials said.
No injuries were reported. Salvage teams were at the site on Saturday, US Coast Guard officials said.
It was the second spill in two months to affect traffic on the 85km commercial waterway that connects Houston to the Gulf of Mexico. Nine US oil refineries that process 12 per cent of the national total operate along the ship channel.
Air monitoring systems have detected no “above actionable levels” of pollution, said Bayport Channel Collision Response, a group of federal, state and shipping officials organised to clear the wreckage and deal with the spill.
Emergency responders placed more than 3,800 feet of floating boom lines as of Saturday morning and were planning to lay another 12,150 feet around the barges and sensitive areas along the nearby bay, the group said.
