Crews clean up oil spill in Texas shipping channel

GALVESTON, Texas — Cannon booms reverberate across the Houston Ship Channel, a scare tactic to keep birds away from oil-slicked beaches. On a mainland shore near a line of refineries, crews scour the sand for quarter-sized tar balls that have washed ashore.

Far on the horizon a few ships floated outside the channel, among the dozens of vessels waiting for the U.S. Coast Guard to reopen one of the nation’s busiest seaports after a barge collision dumped as many as 170,000 gallons of heavy oil into the water.