EPA delays dive for sunken tugboat
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Published: July 30, 2010
MONTPELIER — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is delaying until next spring plans to send divers onto a tugboat that sank in Lake Champlain almost 50 years ago to determine if there is fuel in the vessel that could spill into the lake and cause an environmental disaster.
Meanwhile, the EPA is working with the U.S. Navy to supply the divers who will explore the tug William H. McAllister, which sank about five miles south of Port Kent, N.Y., in November 1963 after it hit a reef.
The EPA’s Paul Kahn says there isn’t time to arrange the logistics of the dive before the weather on Lake Champlain becomes unpredictable with the arrival of cooler weather.
Officials worry the McAllister could hold several thousand gallons of diesel fuel and lubricants.
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