Oil spilled from a barge in Galveston Bay, blocking the busy Houston ship channel and threatening some birds at a nearby wildlife sanctuary, officials and environmentalists said.
U.S. Coast Guard officials said as much as 168,000 gallons of oil may have spilled.
Michael Lambert, spokesman for Galveston County Office of Emergency Management, called it a “significant spill,” but not based on the amount of oil.
“The real issue is that it’s in the ship channel, near environmentally sensitive areas. So there’s an economic impact and an environmental impact,” he told the Los Angeles Times.
