Oil spill halts barge traffic on the Lower Mississippi
A 16-mile stretch of the Lower Mississippi River remained closed to commercial barge traffic on January 30, three days after a tanker barge struck a railroad bridge near Vicksburg, Miss., and began spilling crude oil into the river.
The U.S. Coast Guard reported on Wednesday that 34 northbound vessels with 532 barges and 37 southbound vessels with 524 barges were affected by the closure, which was being enforced between mile markers 425 and 441 near Vicksburg.
The Coast Guard set up a unified command to respond to the oil spill, and also to coordinate with the Coast Guard’s Marine Transportation System Recovery Unit to queue vessels and manage the traffic backlog while cleanup efforts are underway. A timeline for fully reopening the river was not yet available on Wednesday.
The crude is leaking from an 80,000-gallon hold on a tanker barge that struck the bridge near Mile Marker 436 early on Sunday, Jan. 27. The Coast Guard said on Wednesday that response crews had deployed 2,800-feet of boom to contain the oil release, and skimming vessels had recovered approximately 3,900 gallons of oil-water mixture since the incident occurred. The tanker level is being continually monitored, the Coast Guard said.
“Despite the response crew efforts to contain the seeping oil, an unspecified amount has broken through the containment boom due to the difficulties of working on a dynamic and powerful river current,” said Capt. William Drelling, Federal On Scene Commander for the Vicksburg oil spill. “Skimmers are on scene to help minimize the environmental threat of any additional potential releases.”
The Coast Guard said a tow-barge began removing oil from the damaged barge at approximately 2:30 p.m. on Wednesday. The damaged barge, which has been pushed up against the Louisiana shore across from Vicksburg’s Riverwalk and Lady Luck casinos, will be inspected and prepared for transit to a maritime facility near Vicksburg after oil removal operations are complete.
The Coast Guard also reported on Wednesday that it had allowed two southbound barge tows ferrying a small number of barges to transit the closed area “methodically and slowly” to determine whether barge traffic would impact the cleanup. A Coast Guard official said it may continue to allow southbound and northbound vessels to pass through the area in regular intervals, but only if the cleanup is not affected and if the safety of the cleanup crew can be guaranteed.
The incident is just the latest traffic hurdle for commercial barges on the Mississippi. Low water levels have forced barges to lighten drafts for months, and commercial navigation was halted for more than 16 hours on Jan. 22 after damage was sustained to Lock and Dam 27 north of St. Louis near Granite City, Ill. Although January rains have replenished river levels south of Cairo, Ill., the river remains critically low north of Cairo to St. Louis.
The Coast Guard’s unified command consists of personnel from Coast Guard Sector Lower Mississippi River; Coast Guard Marine Safety Detachment Vicksburg; the Coast Guard’s National Strike Force; state on-scene coordinators from Mississippi and Louisiana; and Nature’s Way Marine LLC of Theodore, Ala., the owner of the towing vessel that was pushing the damaged barge.
The damaged barge is owned by Third Coast Towing LLC of Corpus Christi, Texas.