Golden Ray salvage team finds and caps oil leak
Oil leak from Section Six of grounded car carrier finally plugged.
An oil leak that has been issuing from Section Six of the grounded car carrier, Golden Ray, for over a week, has finally been capped by salvors.
The leak began on 31st July when the salvage team dismantling the stricken vessel raised one of the final sections of the wreck, allowing a venting pipe to discharge fuel oil into the surrounding waters of St. Simons Sound, Georgia.
Pollution mitigation teams used a variety of techniques and materials to isolate the spill, including hand tools, sphagnum moss and sorbent pads to clean and treat environmentally important marsh grass.
“Wreck removal personnel capped a venting pipe after it was raised above the waterline during a partial lifting operation of section six of the Golden Ray wreck on August 6,” the St. Simons Sound Incident Unified Command reported in an update statement today.
“The submerged vent was very likely the source of the oil discharges during lifting operations which started on July 31.”
