LNG Carrier Matthew - Coral Grounding; Guayanilla, PR

Source report excerpt: “920' LNG Carrier "Matthew" - Guayanilla, PR This morning at 0605 EST NOAA DARRP (T.Moore) was notified by USCG Sector San Juan that the 920' Liquid Natural Gas Carrier Matthew had grounded while inbound into the Eco Electrica Facility in Guayanilla, PR. The vessel was reported to have grounded in position 17 57.7N, 066 45.4W with a heading of 030. It was initially reported that the vessel was aground in its starboard bow. USCG also inquired if local NOAA staff might be available to respond on-scene in order to help prevent additional coral impacts during extraction. USCG also said they were establishing a formal response, standing up USCG salvage teams, and were requesting the vessel draw […]”

Source report excerpt: “Michael Nemeth (under contract to NOAA through Sea Ventures) is currently with the USCG aboard the vessel gathering information on the incident and subsequent salvage. Sea Ventures personnel have also located the grounding site and in a brief update back relayed that "significant coral damage had occurred" and that the site was "three times larger then the Port Stewart". The Port Stewart is are most recently significant tanker grounding in Puerto Rico and likely impacted 1500 to 2000 sq. meters of reef. More information to follow this evening.”

Source report excerpt: “- We had our contractor dive team on-site yesterday and today with DNER personnel. Yesterday they had five divers and conducted 4 dive cycles. They were able to flip a 1000+ corals, results from today's work are not yet available. - Reports from DNER personnel at the site indicate the footprint of the injury may be in excess of 8000 sq. meters and that coral triage alone could take 30 days. Many large corals are broken but still salvageable. A large number of very large corals have been reported as flipped and we are working to get some large lift bags to the scene in order to aid the righting of those corals. - Large berms of coral have also been reported and low relief sand channels […]”

Source report excerpt: “Arriving on scene last night, DARRP's Sean Griffin met with RP representative Greg Challenger from Polaris and contractors from CSA and Sea Ventures to discuss strategies for today's operations as well as more comprehensive emergency and primary restoration actions at the site. Today was the first day that Sean was in the water at the site. - 8 divers worked the site today, primarily caching corals and mapping the site - Several hundred corals were cached today bring the total to an estimated 1500 to 2000 - Many corals are still buried, especially in grooves that were infilled during the grounding. These corals can be difficult to locate and some require substantial movement of rubble to be […]”

Source report excerpt: “Current Status: Coral triage efforts have concluded at the T/V Mathew grounding site and NOAA, DNER, and Responsible Party representatives have all demobilized for the Christmas holiday as of 12/22. During the last 7 days, a minimum of 4,400 corals were cached at the site and emergency triage is 90% complete with the remaining 10% being difficult to complete in an efficient manner. Report from Previous Day's Activities: On Monday, Dec. 21 the grounding site was divided up into different zones in an attempt to estimate the total number of corals cached, the substrate condition, quantify the amount of rubble available for restoration purposes, triage status, paint situation, etc. The excel […]”