Crews searching for source of Columbia River barge spill

CAMAS, Wash. -- The Coast Guard has requested $3.5 million to clean up oil leaking from a derelict barge on the Columbia River near Camas in southwest Washington.

The Columbian reports the money comes from the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund, created by a federal tax on petroleum products.

The 431-foot Davy Crockett is a World War II Liberty ship that was converted to a barge and has been beached for years for scrapping.

The Coast Guard took control of the vessel last week, after a sheen of oil was spotted in the river. Now more than 60 people from federal and Washington and Oregon state agencies are responding.

About 1,4500 gallons of oil have been recovered, but the barge could hold as much as 953,000 gallons.

This fiasco has been underway for almost 2 weeks now and today crews finally got their first break in dealing with this mess.

In short, the owner of this stripped down former Liberty ship has had it illegally anchored along the bank fronting State property for at least 9 years, and nobody bothered to say anything about it.

Apparently someone was onboard two weeks ago illegally trying to salvage scrap metal, and when they removed a good sized piece of the outer shell plating, the hull folded in half, flooded, sank, and immediately started leaking oil. It wasn't detected until the slick was 15 miles downriver.

Nobody knows where the owner is, nor do they know exactly what is onboard this derelict. Today they managed to re-ballast the stern to stabilize it, and the divers will hopefully be able to find out what else is onboard this thing.

The big question now is how many more vessels just like this one are abandoned along the lower Columbia? There is a fund that is meant to help recover small abandoned vessels, but not something like this. They have already tapped the fund for $3.5 Million, and tonight the word is they have already spent $2.5 Million to date.

There is no telling how long this will take to clean up, and I'm pretty sure the State will be forced to pick up the bill to scrap this derelict in place. Not gonna be cheap to do that either...

Has it been a year since the BP spill? I heard they opened up the shrimp fishing already.

Wasn’t the Prince William Sound suppose to take 100 years to clean up and what 15-20 years later it’s as pristine as ever.

I give this thing 3 days after they contain the ships leak.

Dude should have been pumping oil for years- if it did have almost a million gallons on board he’d have been quite well off.

$1 gallon for waste oil in Texas a while back, if you had enough quantity (BIL works for a filter recycler.)

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