A 91-foot crabbing vessel named North American had sunk at a pier in Seattle on Tuesday morning, triggering a response from the U.S. Coast Guard and several other agencies.
Coast Guard Sector Puget Sound received a report at approximately 7:30 a.m. that the 91-foot crabbing vessel North American had sunk at a pier east of the Ballard Bridge on the south side of the Lake Washington Ship Canal.
Responders from Seattle Fire arrived on the scene and installed a containment boom around the vessel.
The vessel has a reported maximum capacity of 32,500 gallons of diesel.
The Coast Guard took immediate action and opened the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund. In an effort to manage the situation they contracted Global Dive and Salvage, an oil spill response organization, to conduct clean-up and response operations.
Divers were quickly dispatched to the scene to plug vents and mitigate the discharge of additional product into the water.
Responders deployed a secondary layer of containment boom around the vessel. They are planning to transfer the remaining product from the vessel to tanks on shore.
Coast Guard pollution responders from Sector Puget Sound are on scene assessing the area and assisting with the clean-up operations.
There have been no reports of injured wildlife or impacts to vessel traffic due to the incident.
Investigations into the cause of the incident are currently underway.
