A barge carrying 80,000 gallons of oil hit a railroad bridge in Vicksburg, Miss., on Sunday, spilling light crude into the Mississippi River and closing the waterway for eight miles in each direction, the Coast Guard said. A second barge was damaged.
Investigators did not know how much had spilled, but an oily sheen was reported as far as three miles downriver of Vicksburg after the 1:12 a.m. incident, said Lt. Ryan Gomez of the Coast Guard's office in Memphis, Tenn.
Authorities were still trying to determine the source of the leak, but it appeared to be coming from one or two tanks located at the stern of the first barge, Gomez said. He said there was no indication that any oil was leaking from the second vessel, and said it was still unclear whether the second barge also hit the bridge or was damaged through a collision with the first.
"Investigators are still trying to figure out what happened," he said.
United States Environmental Services, a response-and-remediation company, was working to contain the oil with booms before collecting it and transferring it to one of the barge's undamaged tanks, then ultimately to a separate barge, Gomez said. He could not say how long the river would remain closed in the area. Five northbound and two southbound vessels were waiting to pass, he said.
"It's still considered an active leak," Gomez said. "We don't have an estimate or accurate amount of what was released."
Railroad traffic was allowed to continue after the bridge was found safe for trains, Petty Officer Carlos Vega said.
The barges are owned by Third Coast Towing LLC, Gomez said. According to a website listed under that name, the company is located in Corpus Christi, Texas. No one answered the telephone at the company Sunday night.
Both vessels were being pushed by the tugboat Nature's Way Endeavor. The website for Nature's Way Marine LLC of Theodore, Ala., identifies the vessel as a 3,000-horsepower, 90-foot-long boat, making it the largest and highest-powered of the company's five tugs. It was built in 1974 and underwent a complete rebuild in 2011, according to the company.
A company manager referred calls to the Coast Guard command center at Vicksburg.
The last time an oil spill closed a portion of the lower Mississippi River, it was for less than a day last February after an oil barge and a construction barge collided, spilling less than 10,000 gallons of oil. In 2008, a fuel barge collided with a tanker and broke in half, dumping 283,000 gallons of heavy crude into the waterway, and closing the river for six days.
The oil sheen from Sunday's incident was unlikely to pose a threat to the Gulf of Mexico, located 344 river miles south of Vicksburg.
Residents and businesses in Gulf Coast states are still recovering from the April 2010 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig, which killed 11 workers and spewed more than 200 million gallons of oil into the Gulf.
___
McConnaughey reported from New Orleans. Associated Press Writer Lisa J. Adams in Atlanta contributed to this report.
___
Online:
http://www.natureswaymarine.com/default.asp
Information about Endeavor: http://bit.ly/VefsWz
Blog List
-
Kaley Cuoco Shows Off Fit Physique In Skin-Revealing Yoga Outfit - By Suzy Byrne Kaley Cuoco leaving yoga class in L.A. on Monday. (X17online.com)Kaley Cuoco gave new meaning to hot yoga on Monday when she emerged from cla...10 years ago
Pageviews
34,187
Popular Posts
-
For iPhone users, Google Maps is back. The revamped app, launched last week , is being downloaded in the tens of millions . As a resu...
-
Tonight Doctor Who fans get to gorge on their annual Christmas fix -- a full-length special episode the series has produced every year for ...
-
Nintendo Wii U I remember it still people flipped out about the Nintendo ( NTDOY ) Wii . Yes, its name was mocked for a while, but there wa...
-
In a news conference today (Dec. 21), National Rifle Association Executive Vice President and Chief Executive Officer Wayne LaPierre blamed ...
-
Mashable's Anita Li contributed to this report from Toronto. Research in Motion , maker of the once-treasured but now beleaguered BlackB...
-
Apple ( AAPL ) has just released iOS 6.0.2 to fix a number of bugs on the operating system including one bug that reportedly affe...
-
PORTERVILLE, Calif. (AP) The church bell that rings out to announce the deaths of tribal members on the Tule River Indian Reservatio...
-
SINGAPORE (AP) A young Indian woman who was gang-raped and severely beaten on a bus died Saturday at a Singapore hospital, after her horri...
-
LONDON (AP) The news that Prince William and the former Kate Middleton were expecting their first child joyous news for a couple l...
-
PARIS (Reuters) - The French government said it would extend to the end of January the deadline for talks between Google Inc and the French ...