A heavy fuel oil discharge was reported on Monday, 23 of April, at the river near Norco, Louisiana. Namely, 1,400 gallons of fuel oil was discharged into the river, by the chemical tanker “Iver Exporter.” The source of the discharge is secured and the vessel is currently moored at the Shell Norco Manufacturing Complex.
The St. Louis Regional Freightway, Plaquemines Port Harbor & Terminal District and four ports in the St. Louis region signed a Memorandum of Understanding to form an alliance to promote international and inland trade routes at strategic locations along the Mississippi River. The represents a five-year commitment.
The crew departed the vessel onto the towing vessel Ellysa with no reported injuries. The Ellysa also took the one empty barge the Vincent J Eymard was towing. The capsized vessel has approximately 3,000 gallons of diesel fuel onboard. As a result, a waterway restriction has been issued from mile marker 175.9 to mile marker 176.9 requiring one-way traffic.
The US Coast Guard informed that it is searching for two people after a towing vessel sank in the vicinity of mile marker 90.5 on the Mississippi River near New Orleans, on Monday, 12 March. The good Samaritan vessel Earl Gosling managed to rescue one person.
Coast Guard Sector Lower Mississippi River watchstanders received a call last week regarding the George King, reporting an engine room fire with nine crewmembers aboard. The crewmembers abandoned the ship to the dry cargo barges it was pushing with no reported injuries. The fire has now been extinguished.
Fitzgerald will spend several days in the Port of Pascagoula as the heavy lift ship will commence the reverse operation of unfastening, lowering, and guiding the ship off the platform. The ship will then be taken to Huntington Ingalls Industries shipyard.
A few days after the tow boat ‘Ricky Robinson’ sank in the Mississippi River, salvors found one of its two missing crewmen, when the boat was recovered on Sunday, 17 December. The 66-foot towboat had sank south of Mud Island in Memphis on December 8.
NTSB issued its investigation of the 2 September 2015 collision between two towboats and barges. The towboat P. B. Shah was upbound pushing 24 barges on the Lower Mississippi River at mile marker (mm) 937, near Columbus, Kentucky, when two of its barges collided with two of four barges being pushed downbound by the towboat Dewey R. No one was injured; however, the accident resulted in the discharge of 120,000 gallons of clarified slurry oil into the river and an estimated $1.1 million in damages.
The Skuld P&I Club reports that they have seen a recent increase of groundings and other incidents in Mississippi River and two of these groundings involved Skuld entered vessels. The Club advises all operators whose vessels are or soon will be operating in the US Gulf / Mississippi River Range to be mindful that the Mississippi River High River Season has started.
The US Coast Guard announced that the Lower Mississippi River between mile markers 126 and 131 has been closed to navigation following a collision between two towing vessels and their barges. There have been no reports of caustic soda entering the water. Also, there were no reported injuries.
