Sunken WW II Ship Oil Leak Plugged

Atlantic Coast Marine Group, Inc. successfully responds to World War II era motor tanker leaking massive cargo of oil into the Atlantic Ocean's waters.

Beaufort, North Carolina-based Atlantic Coast Marine Group, Inc. (ACMG), a marine salvage, emergency towing and environmental services provider, was recently contracted to provide an initial survey and fast response pollution mitigation to a World War II era vessel believed to be the SS W.E. Hutton.

As ACMG explained, motor tanker W.E. Hutton was underway in 1942 from Texas to Pennsylvania with a cargo of 65,000 barrels of oil when it was sunk by a German U-Boat, taking 13 lives and remaining a watery grave for the past many years until an oil sheen was recently noticed on the waters near its location off the N.C. coast.

Working at the behest of the United States Coast Guard, ACMG's environmental services unit promptly responded with multiple dive teams and assessed the scope and quantity of the leaking oil. ACMG thereafter developed and implemented a pollution containment and mitigation plan which stopped the flow of oil without compromising the m/t W.E. Hutton's cargo spaces.

"This was a challenging operation," ACMG's principal Lee Sykes noted. "It was a pretty deep dive offshore on a very sensitive structure. The possibility for a massive oil spill if something went wrong was definitely there, and that's why our experience was so critical."

In the coming weeks, ACMG anticipates providing additional pollution mitigation services to the m/t W.E. Hutton.

atlanticcoastmarinegroup.com