Specifically, four cargo containers carrying mixed freight were lost overboard, releasing a significant amount of pentachlorophenol (PCP) into the canal waters.
[4] In addition, a number of barrels containing hydrobromic acid were lost overboard, and others broke open and spilled onto the deck of Testbank,[3] creating a cloud of gas around both ships.
Stored in 50-pound (23 kg) paper sacks, the coarse granules of PCP rapidly sank to the bottom of the channel where visibility was nearly zero.
A 9-mile (14 km) length of the canal was closed for six weeks as an estimated $2 million cleanup effort managed to clean up some 90% of the spill.
Guste v. M/V Testbank, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit heard the consolidated claims of some forty-one lawsuits originally filed in the Eastern District of Louisiana.