SAVANNAH, Ga. -- Most of the 500,000 gallons of crude oil spilled into the Savannah River in the Georgia coast's worst environmental disaster will not be recovered, a U.S. Coast Guard official said Sunday.
'There's no estimate on how much can be removed but I believe from what everyone says that the traditional figure in oil spills is that approximately a third of the amount gets recovered,' said Lt. Mike Holingcheck of the U.S. Coast Guard.
'I think people would be surprised at how much better the river looks today,' said Holingcheck. 'A lot of it gets broken down by Mother Nature and is being flushed from the river by tidal action.'
But about 8,000 acres of the 26,000-acre Savannah National Wildlife Refuge has some oil contamination, said refuge manager John Davis.
The oil sheen stretched about 10 miles up the Savannah River and about 15 miles to the mouth of the river, said Hans Neuhauser, director for the Georgia Conservancy's coastal office.
Davis and Neuhauser said there have been no reports of large numbers of birds downed by the oil slick but some birds with oil-soaked feathers, unable to fly, have been found. Environmentalists said it could be weeks before the full effects are seen. There also were no reports of fish kills attributable to the spill, they said.
The oil began spilling from three faulty valves on the Liberian-registered tanker Amazon Venture the night of Dec. 4. It was not until three days later that the ship, docked at the Georgia Port Authority, was identified as the source of the spill.
Holingcheck said cleanup operators turned their attention over the weekend from removing oil from the water to getting it off shorelines and docks.
'They've removed all of the thick globs of oil that they can from the water already,' said Holingcheck.
An estimated 82,280 gallons of the oil had been recovered by Saturday afternoon.
'It's not a situation where the whole river has been covered with oil,' said Holingcheck. 'It's a situation where you have patches of oil and there'll probably be an oil sheen for a while to come. But with the activity on the river at the port and with dredging, the nature of the river front means you're going to have some oil sheen.'
Jim Sipes, another Coast Guard spokesman, said eight contractors were hired by the owners of the ship, Calluna Maritime Corp., to remove the oil.