About 1,200 dead animals, most of them juvenile fish, washed up onto the Galveston Bay Foundation’s property in Kemah after two vessels collided on the Houston Ship Channel Friday. The spill sent about 9,000 barrels of gasoline blend into the busy waterway.

Bob Stokes, president of the foundation, said about 1,000 juvenile fish, roughly 1-inch long, a handful of adult flounder, sheepshead and a variety of drum species, and about 200 blue crabs appeared Sunday on the property about eight miles southwest of the collision.

The ship channel was temporarily closed after the 755-foot tanker Genesis River, carrying liquefied natural gas, collided Friday afternoon with a tugboat pushing two barges. One barge capsized and the other was damaged, leaking a gasoline product called reformate, a highly flammable chemical that’s mixed with gasoline and is dangerous to marine life. It contains significant amounts of benzene, toluene, and xylene.

Officials on Monday reported numerous dead fish in an isolated area, one raccoon and three birds were found dead on the barge. Foundation members also spotted dead fish Monday, but in much smaller numbers, Stokes said. Efforts to skim the material out of the ship channel may have contributed to the reduction.

“They’ve been doing a good job, but unfortunately it takes a little bit of time,” he said.

The concern with the smaller fish, he said, is that the birds easily pick them up.

“When we have a lot of dead juvenile fish floating around, it’s not good for the bird population either,” Stokes said. The birds are likely to ingest whatever toxins are inside the fish and get sick. “I suspect the number of dead seagulls will go up.”

The Kills and Spills Team of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department responded to the fish kill report from the Galveston Bay Foundation, the only report so far, said Julie Hagen, in the Coastal Fisheries Division.

Given the compounds in reformate, high mortality of aquatic life is expected after a spill like this, but then it would typically drop down very quickly afterward as it evaporates and deteriorates, said George Guillen, executive director of the Environmental Institute of Houston.

It has not been determined if the thousands of dead fish are a direct result of the spill.

Shoreline cleanup assessment teams have been sent to areas where the gasoline product may have reached the shore. The next step is to determine the best cleanup process of the shoreline, Stokes said, whether that’s washing it with water or removing sediment. The Galveston Bay Foundation has about 400 feet of shoreline.

More information on the Ship Channel spill Claims Hotline: 1-800-241-9010 Regional Poison Control Center: 1-800-222-1222 Impact to fish and wildlife: 979-215-8835 Air monitoring information: 281-757-3017 Joint Information Center: 281-755-4670 Updates: www.bayport-response.com

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Six skimmers are also on scene and have recovered more than 376 barrels of product-water mixture, according to the latest release from the Bayport Channel Collision Response website. There is active cleaning underway along Bay Shoreline due to reports of sheen.

More than 20,000-feet of boom has been deployed around the barges as well as surrounding sensitive shoreline areas. Containment boom was also placed around the damaged barge and skimming operations are in place as precautionary measures in case product is released when is transferred from the barge.

Craig Kartye, with the Texas General Land Office, said they were expecting to be done transferring the product from the damaged barge Monday evening, which would give officials a better idea of how much was actually spilled. The barge has a capacity to carry 25,000 barrels.

The Texas Department of State Health Services has halted oyster harvesting in Galveston Bay and advises against eating fish caught north of the line between the Texas City Dike and Smith Point.

Oysters are particularly sensitive, Guillen said, because they are filter feeders and concentrate toxins.

Continuous monitoring will be needed to determine any long-term impacts, experts said.

“It’s definitely a major spill and certainly its effects will be very significant,” Guillen said, “how bad that is? It’s very hard to tell.”

As of 3 p.m. Monday, the agencies reported that 4,735 air quality assessments had been taken in the community and that no results showed above “actionable levels.”

The Houston Ship Channel is opened with the following restrictions in place: no meeting or overtaking at Light 73, wake and surge considerations from Light 66-76, vessels are to favor the red side of the channel as a safety precaution.

The captain of the Port of Houston-Galveston has re-opened traffic to recreational boaters. A one nautical mile safety zone is in effect around the damaged barge.

Chambers County sent out a release on Monday alerting the community of the possibility of increasing odors as a result of shifting winds.

While it’s not common to have large spills like this, Stokes said, “it does seem to occur at some level every few years.”

The man-made, 50-mile channel is one of the busiest ports in the world.

Sometimes accidents happen, Stokes said, other times it’s Mother Nature (fog, wind, extra current in the bay). “The important thing is to figure out what happened and to learn from it to ensure it doesn’t happen again.”

perla.trevizo@chron.com