Small oil spill reported off the coast of Texas

Dec. 26 (UPI) -- More than 1,500 feet of boom was deployed off the coast of Texas to capture oil that leaked from a cracked pipeline, the Coast Guard said.

The U.S. Coast Guard dispatched personnel to the La Quinta Channel in Corpus Christi, Texas, after reports of sheen on the water. Coast Guard officials first received reports of the spill late Christmas Eve.

"There have been no reports of impact on wildlife; environmental assessments are still ongoing," the Coast Guard stated. "There have been shoreline impacts on the Spoil Islands."

The Spoil Islands are just outside the Port of Corpus Christi.

The Coast Guard said it deployed containment boom in response to sheen covering just over an acre. The size of the spill was small -- only about 150 barrels of light crude oil. The incident was tied to a pipeline that was cracked in multiple places near the Ingleside oil terminal, operated by Flint Hills Resources.

Ingleside has two docks and a storage capacity of around 3.5 million barrels of crude oil.

Flint Hills had no public statement on the incident.

There was no apparent connection between the incident and the severe winter weather that hammered much of the continental United States. Corpus Christi opened warming centers during the weekend, however, to help people cope with overnight lows in the upper 20s.