Oil spotted 50 miles from wrecked freighter

ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Fuel oil from the Selendang Ayu has reached a fishing community 50 miles from the wreckage of the grounded freighter, prompting new concerns about the effect of last month's spill in the Bering Sea.

State environmental workers found as many as two dozen clumps of oil - some measuring two feet in diameter - along a quarter-mile stretch of Captain's Bay at the southern end of Dutch Harbor, a community of 4,000 on Unalaska Island. It's the first time the oil has reached such a populated area.

"Obviously the extent of contamination has grown substantially," Leslie Pearson, a spill response official with the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation, said Thursday. "It makes you wonder what other shoreline impacts there may be."

Since the oil was reported to the state Wednesday, the agency has been trying to assess the threat to the local water table and area seafood processing plants, Pearson said.

The 738-foot Selendang Ayu, a freighter carrying soybeans and 442,000 gallons of fuel oil and diesel, broke apart Dec. 8 off Unalaska Island after efforts to stop the disabled vessel failed. Six of the ship's crew members were lost at sea when a rescue helicopter crashed.

Salvage crews have recovered nearly 43,000 gallons of oil and water from the ship, but most of the fuel is believed lost. Smaller balls of oil have been spotted in remote areas.

About 600 dead birds have been spotted near the spill site, said Petty Officer Thomas McKenzie of the Coast Guard.

The National Transportation Safety Board said its investigation into the grounding could take a year or longer to complete. The NTSB also is investigating the crash of the Coast Guard helicopter, and the Coast Guard, FBI and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency are conducting their own investigations.