Tagged: coast guard

The Coast Guard says a wellhead damaged earlier this week off Plaquemines Parish has been secured.

Ensign Tanner Stiehl says Wild Well Control crews secured the well shortly after a specialized barge arrived Thursday in Lake Grande Ecaille Bay, nine miles southwest of Port Sulphur.

The wellhead owned by Houston-based Swift Energy Co. was damaged Tuesday by one of the company's crewboats. Stiehl says skimmer boats have since collected more than 1,200 gallons of oily water. He says 4,880 feet of boom was set out to contain the spill and keep it out of marshes.

The Coast Guard will be looking into backup power systems on board a cruise ship that was stranded for several days in the Gulf of Mexico before it was towed to Mobile, Alabama. The main investigation will be handled in the Bahamas where the ship is registered.

A 48-year-old Denham Springs man has been sentenced to a year and a day in federal prison after admitting he stole $127,600 in high-tech equipment from the U.S. Coast Guard and sold it to people in the United States, Sweden and Colombia.

The Advocate reports Raymond L. Beavers told U.S. District Judge James J. Brady Thursday he sold the equipment because of a gambling problem.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Alan A. Stevens said Beavers spent some of the money on tickets and trips to LSU athletic events.

The Coast Guard says it safely evacuated a man with heart disease from a sailboat in the Gulf.

In a news release, the Coast Guard said officials received a call early Thursday about a husband and wife aboard a 64-foot sailboat that was bound for Houston after a trip to Cozumel, Mexico.

The woman reported that the man, who had a history of heart disease, had slumped over and was unresponsive.