NEW ORLEANS (AP) - The Coast Guard says five ships, moving as slowly as safely possible, have been allowed to pass through an oil-contaminated area of the Mississippi River today. Four had been allowed through yesterday.
A large fuel spill that shut down 100 miles of the Mississippi River for four days has had a limited impact on wildlife so far, but officials are worried about fragile wetlands downstream.
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NEW ORLEANS (AP) - A large fuel spill that has shut down 100 miles of the Mississippi River for four days has had a limited impact on wildlife so far, but officials are worried about fragile wetlands downstream.
Almost 800 cleanup workers used containment booms, vacuum skimmers and other equipment Saturday to continue scrubbing oil-coated riverbanks along the nation's busiest inland waterway.
allenge and probably only a fraction of the affected wildlife had been spotted.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The US Coast Guard and clean-up crews were struggling Saturday to rid the Mississippi River of hundreds of thousands of gallons (liters) of spilled fuel oil and unclog a backup of commercial traffic.
Nearly 800 people in several oil removal operations were busy containing the spill with booms and removing what they could from the water, as a limited number of vessels were being allowed through the affected area in southern Louisiana.
n efforts and to resume commercial traffic as soon as practically possible," the Coast Guard said in a statement.

NEW ORLEANS -- Efforts to contain and clean up the nearly 420000 gallons of oil spilled in the lower Mississippi River continued on Saturday.

by Chris Kirkham, The Times-Picayune As clean-up crews on Saturday reached the 10 percent-mark in the massive effort to mop up more than 400000 gallons of

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (CNN) -- Swift currents and bends in the river have helped in the cleanup of the oil spill that led to this week's closure of the

It reads like a movie plot: A ship, stranded at sea, unable to get home. But that's exactly the situation facing the Carnival Fantasy this week as an oil spill keeps it from its berth in New Orleans.
It looks increasingly likely that the 2,052-passenger vessel, scheduled to return to the Big Easy early Saturday from a five-night Western Caribbean voyage, may be forced to divert to another locale due to the two-day-old spill from an oil barge.
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By Bruce Nichols HOUSTON, July 24 (Reuters) - The largest petroleum spill at New Orleans since 2005's Hurricane Katrina snarled Mississippi River traffic on

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (CNN) - At least 60 ships were stalled Thursday along the Mississippi River by an industrial oil spill that spread south of New Orleans to the Gulf of Mexico, a Coast Guard spokeswoman said.
Coast Guard personnel try to contain a fuel oil spill in the Mississippi River in New Orleans on Wednesday.
sday to prevent the oil from spreading to environmentally sensitive areas and seeping into water-supply intake valves in Gretna, St. Bernard, Dalcour, Belle Chasse, Pointe a la Hache, Port Sulphur and Boothville-Venice, Young said.