CHESTER — Work continued around Mile 45 of the Ohio River after a dredge boat overturned and spilled fuel near the East Liverpool shoreline last week.

Witnesses reported Tuesday morning seeing cranes approaching the Tri-State River Products’ dredge boat, which was discovered overturned on the morning of Sept. 11.

Since then, the Coast Guard has been overseeing the investigation into the incident with assistance from the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection.

Jason Croxall, who is instructor for the East Liverpool High School’s Potter News Network, sent a trio of students — Lucas Colvin, David Ansell and Jude Brown — out Tuesday afternoon to grab drone footage and still photographs to memorialize the river salvage company’s deployment of five working cranes to the site of the sunken barge and the capsized dredge.

One of the massive A-frame cranes, nicknamed Big Al, is capable of lifting up to 500 tons. Two of the other cranes are positioned together in hopes of lifting the sunken barge for reclamation.

Croxall and his PNN news crew have been keeping a close eye on the operation through a drone, as the barge sank on the Ohio River not far from Patterson Field.

No one had been aboard the dredge at the time of the incident nor any reports or personnel casualties reported.

Due to the Coast Guard and West Virginia’s Department of Environmental Protection not returning calls, little information was available about what caused the incident or how much fuel may have been spilled into the Ohio River, which many municipalities utilize a water supply.

Typically vessels of this type carry 12,000 gallons of fuel, and containment boons have been deployed to prevent further spread of the thin sheen visible on the water’s surface near the accident site.