Text reposted from SkyTruth, images from Gulf Restoration Network
Savvy SkyTruth Alerts users may have noticed that we haven’t published any new oil or hazmat spill reports from the Coast Guard-operated National Response Center (NRC) since February 20. If you go directly to the NRC website, you see a “down for maintenance” message. Polluters and concerned citizens can still submit reports to the NRC by phone, at 1-800-424-8802. But without the website, we can’t search for or download pollution reports. And that leaves a big hole in our SkyTruth Alerts map, and in the daily updates we email to Alerts subscribers.
It’s also really bad timing, given the major oil spill that happened on the lower Mississippi River due to a barge accident on Saturday afternoon.
We emailed an NRC spokesperson yesterday morning and asked when and why the site went down, and when the Coast Guard expects it to be operational again, but so far we haven’t gotten a response. If anyone has info to share, please post it as a comment to this blog.