Coast Guard says minor oil spill at Sandy Hook Bay, New Jersey

(Reuters) - The U.S. Coast Guard reported a minor oil spill on Thursday at Sandy Hook Bay in Monmouth County, New Jersey, and state officials said it did not pose an environmental threat. An oil sheen, about 1.5 miles west of the Coast Guard station at the northern tip of Sandy Hook, was about two miles long and quarter of a mile wide, U.S. Coast Guard spokesman Charles Rowe said. "The source of the sheen is not known yet, but the material is a refined product. It won't have any effects that a crude oil spill has," Rowe said and added that the sheen is likely to evaporate by morning. As a precaution, the Coast Guard has secured Horseshoe Cove, part of the Sandy Hook National Park. "Its a minor fuel sheen so thin that it cannot be collected. It is not an environmental threat," said Larry Ragonese, press director for the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection. (Reporting by Vijaykumar Vedala & Kevin Jose in Bengaluru; Editing by Lisa Shumaker and Ken Wills)