Leaking barge spilling fuel oil into New York waters

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A barge with a leaking cargo tank spilled fuel oil into a New York City waterway on Saturday, officials said.

The barge was carrying 112,000 gallons of No. 6 fuel oil, but it was unclear how much oil spilled into the water, the U.S. Coast Guard said in a statement.

The spill came from a Boston Marine Transport Inc barge due to a leak from its cargo tank, it said.

The leak occurred at Mays Ship Repair near Mariner's Harbor in the city's Staten Island borough, the Coast Guard said. It was first reported shortly after 11 p.m. local time (2300 ET) on Friday, the Coast Guard said.

Boston Marine Transport said fuel was being transferred from one barge to another when oil could be seen seeping into the water between them, the Coast Guard said. The first barge had the leak, it said.

Boston Marine Transport workers put a containment boom around the two barges, the Coast Guard said.

The Coast Guard said the fuel was leaking into Kill Van Kull, a waterway between Staten Island and New Jersey that connects to New York Bay and the Hudson River.

The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation and the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection were responding to help contain the spill, the Coast Guard said.

(Reporting by Ellen Wulfhorst; Editing by David Brunnstrom and Will Dunham)