EPA Monitoring Ship Crash Scene For Hazardous Materials

BALTIMORE, MD — As the team tasked with determining what caused the cargo ship Dali’s deadly collision with the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore boarded the crippled vessel Wednesday, members noticed a sheen in the water nearby.

Among the thousands of containers onboard are 764 tons of hazardous materials, officials said. National Transportation Safety Board Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy told reporters she saw some of those containers had been sheared open when the steel bridge plunged onto the ship.

While the 984-foot-long Dali can carry about 10,000 standard-sized shipping containers, at the time of the accident it was carrying roughly 4,700 containers.

The vessel was carrying 56 containers of hazardous materials including corrosives, flammables and lithium ion batteries, Homendy said.

Read all of Patch's Key Bridge collapse coverage here.

Two containers went overboard during the collision, but they did not contain hazardous materials, ABC News reported, citing a Department of Homeland Security assessment.

The Coast Guard has the lead in monitoring the ship for leaks and for any clean up effort, said Kelly Offner with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Officials must assess the damage to the Dali and make sure it doesn’t leak fuel or sink. Investigators found damage to at least 13 containers on the ship, the Associated Press reported.

Blue Water Baltimore, an environmental group working to restore and protect the area’s waterways, has set up a reporting hotline for possible contamination from the Dali wreckage. The group said in a statement that it is deeply concerned about multiple issues, ranging from potential fuel leaks to the amount of debris in the water.

“The Coast Guard, local fire departments, and other agencies are rightly focused on the search and rescue efforts at this time. Pollution abatement is the next step,” the environmental group said.

The organization has talked with the Maryland Department of the Environment about potential impacts and how best to respond.

“We need your help. Please keep an eye out for any changes in the water and report anything you might notice – strange odors, discoloration, dead fish – to Blue Water Baltimore's pollution reporting hotline at bluewaterbaltimore.org/report.”

At the time of the crash, the Dali was carrying more than a million gallons of fuel, but there have been no signs that it is leaking, Coast Guard Vice Admiral Peter Gautier said in a White House briefing on Wednesday.

Hazmat inspectors have found no evidence the Dali's hull is leaking any fluids into the river, Gautier said.

"The vessel bow is sitting on the bottom because of the weight of that bridge debris on there," he said, as reported by USA Today. "The vessel is stable, but it still has over 1.5 million gallons of fuel oil and lube oil on board."