Even as Staten Island works to recover from the devastating effects of Hurricane Sandy, it seems that an oil tanker sitting at a barge that lies close to the Shooter’s Island Bird Sanctuary began leaking oil into the surrounding water early last week, a fact that was only divulged by the U.S. Coast Guard over the weekend.
That news came alongside this Coast Guard fly-over photograph of the scene, with levels deliberately reduced to obscure the extent of the spill’s resulting sheen. You can see the comparison between the original Coast Guard photo and the same photo modified to show normal levels of light saturation yourself below (click here for the original Coast Guard source):
The original, low-light version of the photograph released by the Coast Guard.
The photograph with normal levels of light saturation.
Obviously an attempt to play down the extent of the problem; no decent camera, let alone one used to take such sensitive pictures, takes photographs with those low light levels without being set to do so.
Authorities are still staying quiet about the extent of the spill, though the tanker itself is said to hold a tank with a capacity of 147,000 gallons of crude.
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