Spill Forces Closure of Part of Harbor

Cleanup began Wednesday on about 4,200 gallons of fuel oil that apparently spilled from an Israeli container ship that sailed into the nation’s busiest port with a dented hull, the Coast Guard said.

About 60 people from a private cleanup firm spent the day bobbing in small boats, swabbing the thick oil off water underneath piers lining the upper reaches of the West Basin of Los Angeles Harbor, Coast Guard Lt. Gail Kulisch said.

The Los Angeles Fire Department and U.S. Coast Guard deployed booms across a section of the harbor between Berth 120 and Berth 148, closing off the northern fork of the West Basin to contain the spill, which was reported at about midnight by the operators of a barge sent to refuel the ship.

Once the spill spread away from the center of the channel to the piers, authorities began opening the boom to let ships pass one at a time, then closing it to keep the oil from moving down the channel.

The spill was in a remote area of the harbor and the Long Beach Channel remained open. There were no plans to close the port.

Coast Guard officials struggled to quantify the spill, estimating before daylight that 4,200 gallons had spilled, then guessing that nearly 10,000 gallons were lost and, later, after surveying the spill from the air and from small boats, returning to the 4,200-gallon “guesstimate,” Kulisch said.

“The Israeli container ship Zim California that is moored at Berth 146 in the West Basin was reported at midnight to have a gash in its side and have heavy oil leaking from it,” Coast Guard Petty Officer Brenda Toledo said.

The vessel’s agent, Zim Ship Services, had accepted responsibility for the spill, she said. There were no reports of damage to wildlife.

Kulisch said divers equipped with special video cameras found dents and scratches in the hull but had not located any obvious holes from which the oil could have flowed. Chemical testing was expected to determine if the oil in the water actually came from the ship, she said.