Weekly News Summary For March 2-8, 2009:
Washington, D.C.—The barge and towing industry was reminded February 24 that there is a problem with the Inland Waterways Trust Fund: this is the first year that the fund does not have sufficient funding to meet the federal support.
That bad news was relayed by Rep. Peter J. Visclosky (D-Ind.), chairman of the Energy and Water Development Appropriations Subcommittee, during his keynote address at the 2009 Spring Seminar of Waterways Council Inc. in Washington, D.C.
Visclosky said that steps were taken to lessen the impact of “this very real shortfall,” but that the action was “only temporary.” The temporary relief for the Trust Fund shortfalls includes money from the stimulus bill.
The congressman said he hoped that with the start of a new administration, the appropriate congressional committees—House Transportation and Infrastructure, and Ways and Means, along with their Senate counterparts—will reach agreement on restructuring the revenue stream.
One suggestion, he said, would change the non-federal cost share required for inland navigation projects, an approach that Visclosky said he “firmly opposes for a number of reasons.”…
Some 99 percent of the towing vessels operating in the Eighth Coast Guard District were found to have properly licensed mariners on board in a massive three-month long investigation called Operation Big Tow.
Of the 3,400 licenses that were reviewed, only 43 licenses were found to have issues.
“The high percentage of vessels in compliance with Coast Guard standards is not surprising,” said Lt. Cmdr. Robert Keister, chief of vessel and facility inspections for the Eighth Coast Guard District, by far the district with most towing vessels. It includes 26 states along the Gulf of Mexico coastline and the Western Rivers.
Begun in November 2008, Operation Big Tow was a result of the July 23, 2008, collision that closed nearly 100 miles of the Mississippi River near New Orleans. The investigation into that collision revealed the crewman driving the uninspected towing vessel (UTV) Mel Oliver was improperly licensed because he was unsupervised while operating under an apprentice mate license.
The Mel Oliver was pushing a loaded barge just after midnight, when it veered into the path of a downbound ship, causing a collision that nearly split the barge in half and spilled 282,000 gallons of thick, No. 6 black oil into the river…
Archer Daniels Midland Company (ADM) has announced plans to increase its South American barge fleet by 50 percent.
Speaking at the Consumer Analyst Group of New York’s annual conference in Boca Raton, Fla., February 17, Executive Vice President John Rice said the expansion would “improve our sourcing capability in this growing region” in an effort to “capture additional value from our integrated transportation network.”
Reportedly, at present ADM has more than 200 covered hopper barges in South America. The additional barges will come from whatever sources the market dictates—newly built or used, in South America or the United States—said a person familiar with the situation.
Additionally, the company operates at least 16 towboats in South America, but it is yet to be determined if more will be needed to handle the greater number of barges, the person said….
Canal Barge Company celebrated its 75th year of operations with the christening of the line boat Mary Lucy Lane in ceremonies held at the new Mardi Gras World East along the Mississippi River in New Orleans on February 7.
Under beautiful skies to match the ceremony, Mary Lucy Lane broke the bottle of champagne in a ceremony aboard the boat that was originally named the Frank H. Peavey. Canal acquired it, along with a sister boat, the Killian L. Huger, in 1999.
Mary Lucy was reluctant at first to have the christening event be for the boat named in her honor, telling her husband David Lane she preferred that they honor one of the other family members. David Lane is senior vice president of marketing and younger brother of Merritt Lane, the company president and chief executive officer. It was Merritt who insisted the boat be christened in Mary Lucy’s honor.
Originally built by St. Louis Shipbuilding in 1979, the 3,800 hp. mv. Mary Lucy Lane measures 140 by 38 by 10 feet and was completely gutted and refurbished at Elmwood Shipyard in 2007 with the latest soundproofing to exceed crew endurance management system (CEMS) standards.
David Lane, speaking about his wife, said, “While her namesake is much like the boat—attractive, strong and a workhorse—I am pleased to say that she does not require a personal makeover,” eliciting a laugh from the several hundred in attendance….
A federal appeals court in Nashville, Tenn., rejected a lower court’s overriding of the maritime liability limit in the case of a capsized fishing boat that caused a man’s death.
The February 19 ruling reversed a lower court’s judgment that the liability limit could be overridden. The liability limit, a long-established principle of federal maritime law, limits monetary damages from negligent actions in most cases to the value of the vessel involved—in this case, about $420,000, instead of the $3.3 million the lower courts awarded the man’s widow.
In June 2005, the Patricia H, a vessel owned by the Tennessee Valley Authority, capsized a small fishing boat in the Cumberland River with a three-foot wake. After hearing the screams of one of the two men thrown into the river, the boat’s pilot, Jeff Ralls, turned the boat around and instructed his deckhands to help rescue the men.
Both men, Thomas Lawrence and Ronald Matheny, Lawrence’s nephew, were brought aboard. But Matheny could not be revived and was pronounced dead at a local hospital. The original suit was brought by Ronald’s widow, Becky Matheny.
During the trial, the TVA conceded that Matheny’s death was 100 percent caused by the Patricia H’s wake.
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