WHITING, Ind. (AP) - High winds and waves have delayed a search along Lake Michigan for crude oil possibly submerged offshore following an oil spill at BP’s northwestern Indiana refinery.
The U.S. Coast Guard said Friday’s poor weather made it too dangerous for a Coast Guard, BP and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency assessment team to launch boats to retrieve samples along the path of the Whiting refinery’s oil spill. That work is expected to resume Sunday.
Crews were scheduled to remove oil-covered pebbles Saturday along the lake some 20 miles southeast of downtown Chicago where a refinery malfunction discharged oil earlier this week.
BP said Thursday a preliminary estimate shows between 15 and 39 barrels of oil were discharged into the lake by its Whiting refinery. That’s between 630 and 1,638 gallons.
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