The Coast Guard, in coordination with the Washington Department of Ecology and several other agencies, is actively responding to a sunken vessel incident in Seattle. The 91-foot crabbing vessel, North American, sank at a pier east of the Ballard Bridge on the south side of the Lake Washington Ship Canal early Tuesday morning.
At approximately 7:30 a.m., watchstanders at Coast Guard Sector Puget Sound received a distress report about the sinking vessel. Seattle Fire Department promptly arrived at the scene, deploying containment booms around the vessel to prevent further environmental contamination.
The North American has a reported maximum capacity of 32,500 gallons of diesel, posing a significant risk of spillage. To address this, the Coast Guard activated the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund and contracted Global Dive and Salvage, a specialized oil spill response organization, to manage clean-up and response operations.
Divers have been deployed to plug vents on the vessel, aiming to mitigate any further discharge of diesel into the water. Additionally, responders have set up a secondary layer of containment booms around the vessel to bolster initial efforts. The plan involves transferring the remaining diesel from the sunken vessel to storage tanks onshore.
Coast Guard pollution responders from Sector Puget Sound are on-site, assessing the situation and providing support for the clean-up efforts. Currently, there are no reports of injured wildlife or disruptions to vessel traffic in the area.
The cause of the incident remains under investigation, as responders continue to manage and mitigate the environmental impact of the sunken vessel.
