On September 9, 2025, over 76 shipping containers fell into the ocean off the Port of Long Beach. Immediately following the incident, Orange County Coastkeeper contacted the U.S. Coast Guard with questions: What was inside the containers? How did cleanup efforts unfold? And what could the spill mean for long-term water quality?
Our requests, which the Coast Guard was obligated to respond to under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), went unanswered.
In February 2026, Coastkeeper filed a FOIA lawsuit demanding that the agency release information about the spill to Coastkeeper and the public. The Honorable Judge David O. Carter agreed with Coastkeeper, ordering the Coast Guard to produce the requested documents and directing both parties to establish a timeline for their release.
In July 2026, ten months after the spill, Coastkeeper finally received the documents. Among them, we found information about a small oil spill that occurred during the incident but had not previously been reported publicly. The documents also reveal that tons of consumer goods were dumped into the harbor. Our investigation is ongoing, and we will update the story as we learn more.
Our community cares about marine shipping, port safety, and ocean water quality. However, the public should not have to file a federal lawsuit to understand what happens when a major environmental incident occurs in our own backyard. Coastkeeper fought for these documents because the public deserves transparency from the agencies responsible for protecting our waterways.
This kind of watchdog work helps hold agencies accountable, but it takes time, resources, and funding that are often difficult to secure. If you value Coastkeeper’s role in protecting our waters and holding agencies accountable, please consider supporting our Water Quality Enforcement program.
Your donations help power the legal action that uncovers hidden pollution, compels agencies to follow the law, and protects our water when no one else will.
For public watchdogs, researchers, and community members interested in reviewing the records themselves, we’ve prepared a shareable cloud folder containing the documents Coastkeeper received through our FOIA lawsuit.
OC Coastkeeper’s FOIA action is just the latest example of its long history of stewardship with the Port of Long Beach. For more than 20 years, Coastkeeper founder and president Garry Brown has served as the environmental nonprofit representative on the Port of Long Beach & Los Angeles’ Harbor Safety Committee.
