The U.S. Coast Guard has turned operations over to the Greater Farrallones National Marine Sanctuary for the commercial fishing vessel that ran aground near Bodega Bay on Feb. 9.  

The Coast Guard had been trying to right The Aleutian Storm, a 58-foot commercial fishing vessel, since it went aground 2 miles southwest of Bodega Bay in Sonoma Coast State Park, but now says it will be a salvage operation led by the marine sanctuary, which is overseen by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The Coast Guard attempted to remove all diesel from the vessel, but now says such operations are unsafe due to the weather and the degraded condition of the boat. 

Efforts to refloat the boat and relocate it further up the beach were unsuccessful before the rain arrived this weekend, the Coast Guard said. Before that, crews had been able to remove diesel from one storage tank on board, but they do not know how much remains.

The Coast Guard said that an unknown amount of diesel fuel leaked from the boat on Feb. 12 as authorities tried to move it. The boat has a capacity of 3,400 gallons of diesel fuel and had about 1,500 gallons on board, the Coast Guard said.  

The exact cause of the ship’s grounding and the amount of diesel that has leaked is still being investigated, the Coast Guard said.   

Katy St. Clair got her start in journalism by working in the classifieds department at the East Bay Express during the height of alt weeklies, then sweet talked her way into becoming staff writer, submissions editor, and music editor. She has been a columnist in the East Bay Express, SF Weekly, and the San Francisco Examiner. Starting in 2015, she begrudgingly scaled the inverted pyramid at dailies such as the Vallejo Times-Herald, The Vacaville Reporter, and the Daily Republic. She has her own independent news site and blog that covers the delightfully dysfunctional town of Vallejo, California, where she also collaborates with the investigative team at Open Vallejo. A passionate advocate for people with developmental disabilities, she serves on both the Board of the Arc of Solano and the Arc of California. She lives in Vallejo.