U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Response to Vessel Grounding/Oil Spill off Unalaska Island

February 25, 2005: After lightering operations on the M/V Selendang Ayu wreck were concluded on February 11, 2005, the response effort moved into a winter operations phase. Fisheries water quality sampling and seafood inspections are ongoing during this period, but clean up activities were curtailed and monitoring limited to two flights per week weather permitting. Assessment activities will resume on April 4 and full scale clean up activities on April 15.

The initial response effort resulted in the collection of approximately 38,000 bags of oily solid waste consisting of vegetation, wrack, sand/gravel, and driftwood; 1,608 bird carcasses; 5 otter carcasses; and a total of 144,931 gallons of oil, diesel and oil/water mixture. The bow of the Selendang Ayu is now completely submerged and the Unified Command estimates that 321,052 gallons of IFO and an unknown amount of marine diesel fuel were released into the environment.

Beginning in April, Service personnel will head back out to Unalaska to participate on Shoreline Cleanup Assessment Teams (SCAT), assigned to assess the post-winter oiling shoreline conditions. Service biologists will conduct wildlife reconnaissance, including observations of breeding birds in the shoreline zone, oiled wildlife sightings, and presence of oiled carcasses. Wildlife search and recovery teams may be activated based on SCAT team observations. Service representatives will also coordinate wildlife needs with SCAT activities and cleanup operations.