Coast Guard Responds To Oil Discharge In Lower Mississippi River Near Gramercy, La.

The U.S. Coast Guard responded to a fuel oil discharge earlier this month on the Mississippi River near Gramercy, La.

On January 4 just before 8:30 a.m., Coast Guard Sector New Orleans’ Incident Management Division received a report from the National Response Center, the federal point of contact for reporting oil discharges, that a discharge of 2,500 gallons of fuel oil had occurred at Petroleum Fuel & Terminal Company, located in Mount Airy near Mile 144.6 on the Lower Mississippi River.

Apex Oil Company Inc. owns the terminal, which handles No. 6 oil, liquid asphalt and light oil, according to the company’s website. The facility has a total storage capacity of 2.5 million barrels.

The spill occurred while oil was being transferred from the facility to a tank barge in the river.

In response to discharge, the Coast Guard conducted a pair of flights over the area and deployed multiple assessment teams to the site. OMI Environmental Solutions and Environmental Safety and Health, the companies hired to handle the cleanup, dispatched a total of eight vessels and deployed skimming packages, boom and absorbents, according to a Coast Guard press release on the matter. In addition, the Center for Toxicology & Environmental Health LLC was monitoring air quality.

Other investigating agencies included the Louisiana Oil Spill Coordinators Office, Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries and the Department of Environmental Quality.