Weekly News Summary for February 26-March 4, 2007:
Daniel P. Mecklenborg, senior vice president and chief legal officer of Ingram Barge Company, offered several recommendations for legislators considering appropriations during a hearing by the House Energy and Water Development Appropriations Subcommittee February 16.
Mecklenborg, who was testifying as first vice chairman and general counsel of Waterways Council Inc., recommended, among other things, that lawmakers find a way to complete annual Energy and Water Development appropriations bills covering an entire fiscal year prior to the start of that fiscal year. Furthermore, he recommended that legislators continue to appropriate the surplus in the Inland Waterways Trust Fund, which held $250 million at the beginning of this fiscal year.
Among other recommendations, Mecklenborg also urged the subcommittee to increase the operation and maintenance funding for inland navigation projects, address the “ballooning” HMT surplus that is expected to reach $4.7 billion by the end of fiscal year 2008, and authorize and fund the Upper Mississippi-Illinois Waterway System Navigation project….
Marquette Transportation Company Inc., Paducah, Ky., has purchased four towboats from Ozark Transportation Company LLC, Ash Flat, Ark. Following rumors of the sale, Inland River Record editor Dan Owen contacted Ozark president Charles Strait, who confirmed the transaction. Owen said Strait told him none of the other boats in Ozark’s fleet have been sold.
Strait is also president of Western Boat Management Inc., which operates the Ozark vessels.
Strait said he has sold the mvs. Capt. Adrian Hargrove, Capt. Bear Ivie, Capt. Russell Simpson and Riley Elizabeth to Marquette Transportation Company, which has already painted the stacks black and added its distinctive Indians and canoe stack logo.
The boats are products of two distinctive eras of Dravo Corporation’s reign as a premier inland shipyard.
The 200- by 45-foot Capt. Adrian Hargrove debuted in 1957 as the Valley Voyager for the former Mississippi Valley Barge Line. It was one of the pioneer powerhouses of its era, with a whopping 4,200 hp. from a pair of Nordberg 12-cylinder engines. It was one of several in a series of high-performance towboats built by the Pittsburgh yard for service along the Lower Mississippi River. During its 50-year life span the veteran vessel has had several owners and names and was repowered in 1982 with a pair of 20-cylinder EMD diesels, rated at 7,200 total hp….
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers eased width restrictions for barge tows transiting the Melvin Price Locks near Alton, Ill., on February 17. Extremely cold weather during the past two weeks had built up ice on the lock’s concrete walls, eventually requiring a limit of 89 feet within the 110-foot-wide, 1,200-foot-long main chamber. The restriction has been lifted to 105 feet wide, the width of a standard three-barge-wide tow.
Corps officials backed off restrictions after sunshine reduced the ice buildup on the side closest to the Illinois shore of the lock. Four lock operators at Melvin Price Locks spent about three hours February 17 using steam, hot water and pike poles to thaw ice on the other wall.
At the location of the Melvin Price Locks, the Mississippi River runs from west to east. The wall on the left side receives sunlight most of day, while the wall on the right side, or on the chamber’s south side, is shaded from the sun.
“We don’t want to hamper navigation any more than necessary,” said Corps spokesman Alan Dooley.
Lockmaster Mike Quinn on Tuesday said the pool at Mel Price is still 60 percent covered with ice.
“There’s still a lot of ice out there. We can’t get rid of ice all of a sudden with elevated temperatures. As warming trends occur, you may see ice breaking up, and it’ll start to pile up. That can be a challenge to navigation,” Dooley said….
American Commercial Lines announced last week that it has secured a three-year agreement for its shipyard employees with the General Drivers, Warehousemen & Helpers (Teamsters), Local Union No. 89. ACL is the parent company of Jeffboat, the nation’s largest inland shipyard, located at Jeffersonville, Ind.
The three-year agreement, which was ratified by more than 95 percent of the voters, provides for first year wage increases ranging from 5 percent to 18 percent for various job positions, resulting in an overall average wage increase of approximately 11 percent.
ACL offered the raise to Jeffboat employees at the same time that it announced record profits for 2006 (WJ, February 12).
The previous contract with the union was due to expire on April 1….
One person was killed and another suffered second-degree burns when a barge carrying 17,000 gallons of crude oil exploded near Venice, La. The incident remains under investigation by the Coast Guard, said Lt. Cmdr. Cheri Ben-Iesau, chief of investigations for Sector New Orleans.
The explosion occurred on February 17. The body of the welder was found the next day by a Coast Guard helicopter. Names of the victims were being withheld pending notification of family.
Welding work was underway on the moored barge when it exploded. The accident occurred about 3 p.m. in Garden Isle Bay, just off Pass a Loutre, near the Head of Passes on the Mississippi River….
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