OCEAN SHORES, Wash. -- A new slick of black crude tar oil from a ruptured barge was discovered Friday in Grays Harbor, leading to a delay in the release of sea birds rescued from the spill and extending the clean up of the gooey mess, an official said.
State Department of Ecology spokesman Ron Holcomb said an aerial survey indicated the slick had several fingers between 200 and 300 yards long and measuring about 18 inches wide. The oil had not reached the beaches around the harbor as of late Friday evening, he said.
'We're not sure where it came from -- possibly from a pocket of oil that was missed (in the clean up this week) then was broken up when a storm came through here last night,' he said.
He said another survey would be done Saturday to determine how best to clean up the slick, which would delay the release of about 325 sea birds that were covered with oil after a collision between a barge and its tug in heavy seas Dec. 23. The accident left an oil slick 40 miles long.
Another 1,569 birds were being held in the Ocean Shores Convention Center, where volunteers have been going through the tedious process of cleaning them so they can be returned to the wild. The spill has killed about 1,200 birds so far, including about 30 found on the beaches of northern Oregon, he said.
Earlier Friday, a dozen sea birds -- their oil-soaked feathers freshly washed -- were banded and returned to the wild in the first release since volunteers rescued them.
The cleaned birds -- mostly murres -- were banded, put into boxes and then trucked to Damon Point for release near the mouth of Grays Harbor, Holcomb said. Bird experts overseeing the cleanup operation say the birds' chances of survival range from 25 percent to 65 percent.
Volunteers working in two shifts have been washing the birds with a mild detergent and feeding the survivors smelt to help them recover strength and replenish the oils in their feathers, which is needed to keep them warm and buoyant in the water.
The oil destroys the birds' natural oils that keep them warm and dry. An oil-coated bird can drown or develop hypothermia and can also die from ingesting the oil as it tries to clean itself.
Spilled oil washed up on at least three miles of beach near Ocean Shores. Some of the oil fouled eel grass and edges of Sand Island, a delicate saltwater ecosystem in Grays Harbor.
