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Lake Erie shipwreck sparks an emergency response from Coast Guard. The Cleveland Underwater Explorers (CLUE) discovered the wreck on August 28th. It’s believed to be a vessel called the Argo(November 24, 1905 On the morning of Friday, November 24, 1905, a severe southwest storm developed with 65 mile-per-hour winds. While attempting to enter the Holland harbor near dawn, the Argo slipped into the trough of the waves, hit bottom on the notorious sand bars and opened a seam. She sank in relatively shallow water.) that sank in 1937. Update - Monday, October 26, 10:10 a.m.:

the coast guard sent out a crew from station marblehead, Ohio along with members of Atlantic strike team from new Jersey to the site Monday, October, 26th, 10:10. and started doing air monitoring at the site. during the investigation Coast Guard spokesman petty officer 3rd class Christopher M. yaw said they found an unknown substance leaking from the barge.

The marine safety unit deployed pollution respondents with boat crew from the coast guard station marblehead Ohio that Friday, Saturday, and Sunday and discovered the wreck on August 28th. It’s believed to be a vessel called the Argo that sank in 1937, and had reported smelling strong odor of solvent the first two days. coast guard air station Detroit aircrew sent out an initial overflight on that Saturday with Toledo pollution respondents aboard, who had prior to the event reported observing a 400 yard discoloration on the water near the site. A second overflight on Sunday morning was unable to locate any discoloration. Migliorini says it appears to be some kind of solvent, and they're working to identify the product. He says the Coast Guard is monitoring the site by air and mobilizing an emergency response team now.

the coast guard initiated an emergency response to a leak from a tank barge that is It's at the bottom of lake Erie about 44 feet below the surface of the water. The wreck site is 12 miles northeast of Sandusky in western Lake Erie. with further inspection the records showed it was carrying over 100,000 gallons of oil when it sank.that Monday they had respondents on the scene and their primary goal was to identify the source of the leak and secure it.the respondents showed up on scene on Monday with their primary goal will be to identify the source of the leak and secure it.the response team had taken safety precautions, and the Coast Guard had established a restricted zone around the wreck. and asked boaters to stay 1,000 feet away from the site.

The first sign of a leak

Christopher Gillcrist is the executive director of the National Museum of the Great Lakes. His organization funds the shipwreck search team CLUE on its missions in Lake Erie. He sent a CLUE dive team out that Friday to measure the wreck, and that was when the divers noticed an odor in the air above the wreck site and observed what they described as a small amount of petroleum product in the water."They described it as kind of an oily, solvent, chemical smell. Not something you'd classify as outright fuel. It is by no means a continuous discharge." Gillcrist says they immediately reported that finding to the Coast Guard. The Coast Guard then sent out a team to investigate. Gillcrist says they're certain the wreck is the Argo - he says measurements the dive team took on Friday match the dimensions listed in the historical record. The Coast Guard's Migliorini said there was "considerable amount of evidence" to support that.

The Argo is considered the biggest pollution threat from a shipwreck in the Great Lakes. In 2013, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration published a risk assessment of what the agency considers the 87th most potentially hazardous shipwrecks in U.S. waters.The Argo made the top of the list for the five shipwrecks in the Great Lakes that are considered the highest pollution risk. That's for a couple of reasons: the Argo sank in a storm, and is still intact, and also because of her cargo. Lisa Symons is the damage assessment and resource protection coordinator for NOAA's Office of National Marine Sanctuaries. She wrote the risk assessment. She says the barge's records indicate it was carrying 197,000 total gallons of two petroleum products: a product called benzol, and crude oil."Our assumption is that it was half benzol and half crude oil but we have no way of knowing for sure," she says. She says they only modeled the pollution threat for the crude oil. "We didn't model it for the benzol because we believe the benzol probably volatilized at the time of the incident. It's a much lighter fuel and that would've been more likely to get out of the wreck more easily."Symons says there are some discrepancies in the historical record as to how much oil might've been on board, but she says the barge had just been loaded not long before it sank. The big question now is: how much of that oil is still on board?