Port Walter Spill; Port Walter, AK

Port Walter, AK | 2000-Nov-18

Initial Notification: At 1100 AST on Saturday, Nov. 18, 2000 the NMFS Resident Mechanic of the Little Port Walter's (LPW) Research Station, Brad Weinlaeder, reported an oil spill in the bay forming Port Walter (also known as Big Port Walter - BPW) along the east side of Baranoff Island in southern Chatham Strait, Southeast Alaska. Further investigations revealed the spill had originated from an old unknown above ground storage tank hidden back in heavy underbrush along a steep shoreline at a long abandoned herring reduction plant site at New Port Walter (NPW) Cove. The NPW Cove herring plant site is about 1.2 miles by water from the LPW station and roughly one-half mile along the north shoreline inside BPW. The plant apparently last operated in the early 1930's. Little evidence of the plant remains today and what is left is in ruins and out of sight. USCG district 17.