The Coimbra was a British supply ship during WWII that was torpedoed and sunk by a German U-boat in the Battle of the Atlantic. The vessel now sits 180 feet below the surface about 30 miles off the coast of Shinnecock, New York. The Coimbra went down carrying 2.7 million gallons of oil. In 2015, NOAA’s National Environmental Satellite Data and Information Service (NESDIS) discovered abnormalities at the wreck site that appeared to be an oil sheen.

Oil sheens have been reported at the site with growing frequency. The Coast Guard determined that the Coimbra posed a substantial threat to the environment and opened the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund for an underwater assessment.

Deep-water divers continue to drill into the ship using a process called hot tapping in order to extract oil samples and determine the best removal process. Initial dive operations began earlier this month and will continue over the next few weeks until all the recoverable oil is removed and the tanker no longer poses an environmental threat.

“There are a lot of moving parts to this one operation in order to safely remove the oil product in the tanks that far below the surface,” said Cmdr. Keith Donohue, the on-scene federal incident commander, in a Coast Guard press release. “Each person aboard the Shelia Bordelon has a very specific role to play in these daily movements, whether it is a diver working on the wreck itself, to the dive supervisors keeping a close eye on his particular diver, to the those working with the salvaged piece of hull so that we can determine the best way to drill into the tanks, extract the oil and have as minimal impact on the maritime environment as possible.”

OR&R's Steve Lehmann is providing scientific support to the mission from the region. OR&R’s Emergency Response Division continues to provide trajectories in case a spill should occur during the operation.