The U.S. Coast Guard says a petroleum-based solvent is leaking from what’s believed to be the tanker barge Argo, which went down in a storm off Kelleys Island in 1937.
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Kowalczk said he was nearly done for the day on August 28 when his side scanning sonar equipment detected the image of a ship on the bottom of Lake Erie.
The U.S. Coast Guard says that divers will try to get down to the site of sunken barge on Lake Erie on Tuesday morning, in a bid to potentially find and patch any leak that is coming from it. It was not spotted during a second flight Sunday.
It wasn’t qualified to operate in the Great Lakes’ open waters, and when it did, the barge Argo was caught in a gale, capsized, and sank. There has been no indication that any oil has gotten on birds or affected fish, he said. The Argo is among 87 shipwrecks on the federal registry created two years ago to identify the most serious pollution threats to USA waters.
Friday evening crews at Marine Safety Unit Toledo, Ohio, received a report from the Cleveland Underwater Explorers, of a leak of an unknown substance emanating from the barge and an odor of solvent, but they did not observe the leak underwater.
The only two crew members aboard the Argo stood on the side of the craft until they could be rescued, Kowalczk said. “I was a little perplexed”, Kowalczk said.
A group of Shipwreck hunters and researchers are working to confirm if the wreck is the “Argo“. The coast guard is taking step to reduce Argo’s potential threat, the release stated.
The leaking material, Mr. Kowalczk said, only became obvious because his vessel stayed on station above the wreck for an extended time. And there have not been any reports of large spills in the area.
“[The] speed at which NOAA, the United States Coast Guard and other agencies have reacted to the discovery of the Argo is remarkable”, said Christopher Gillcrist, executive director of the National Museum of the Great Lakes.
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TNT Marine Salvage of Roseville, Mich., has been hired to respond to the scene today, the commander said.
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“That’s really going to depend on how it goes forward”, he said. Tom Kowalck has been diving and searching for shipwrecks for more than 40 years.
