COUPEVILLE — A commercial dive team continued last week to look for any oil remaining in the Deep Sea, which sank last Sunday in Penn Cove after a fire that began shortly before midnight.
The divers hired by the Coast Guard checked for places on the crab boat where fuel or other hazardous materials might lodge, the state Department of Ecology said Friday.
The dive team had to suspend work early in the day because of high winds, Ecology said.
Penn Cove Shellfish of Whidbey Island moved its harvesting crew to Quilcene Bay after the diesel spill.
The state Department of Health temporarily closed commercial and recreational shellfish harvesting off Whidbey Island because of the spill.
Other environmental contractors continue to maintain oil spill containment boom in waters over the sinking site and along nearby commercial shellfish operations, Ecology said Friday.
Small patches of oil sheen appear periodically within the containment boom around the wreck. There are no reports of visible oil on waters outside that area.
Shoreline surveys
Representatives of Ecology and other agencies are conducting shoreline surveys to assess and document environmental effects of the spill.
A Coast Guard contractor has removed more than 3,000 gallons of diesel fuel.
The Coast Guard and Ecology jointly oversee the response operation, which will continue until both agencies are certain that the Deep Sea is as free as possible of all possible oil and hazardous materials.
The vessel had been illegally anchored in Penn Cove off Whidbey Island on state-owned aquatic lands since December, the state Department of Natural Resources has said.
DNR began billing the owner of the vessel, Rory Westmoreland, $83.44 a day since March 13.