Weekly News Summary For March 16-22, 2009:
Envision a 40-barge tow peacefully pushing down the middle of the Mississippi River. Now imagine, on the surface of the channel bottom below, an array of thousands of mini-turbines anchored in pilings, facing into the current like so many pinwheels and generating thousands of kilowatts of electricity for shoreside use.
That’s the scenario being pondered by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commision, the agency in charge of licensing energy-producing projects. It’s currently evaluating more than 50 proposals to install arrays of water turbines along the Mississippi River bottom. Free Flow Power’s batch proposal is made up of 55 individual sites. Together, they form the largest of many proposed hydrokinetic sites, part of a “permit rush” by energy companies and utilities seeking to get in on the ground floor of this alternative energy source. The permit-holders are doing studies because many questions about the environmental impacts of hydrokinetic projects, and specific locations of generation equipment, have yet to be answered.
In April, FERC will announced its decisions on what additional studies might have to be done to assess the safety and effectiveness of the Mississippi River proposal—including, possibly, studies of navigational safety.
FERC has already issued 59 permits to a New England company, Free Flow Power Company, to study sites along the Mississippi to determine the best placement of its proposed turbine arrays of between 900 and as many as 5,000 turbines. Besides Free Flow Power, at least two other companies have obtained FERC permits to develop hydrokinetic projects in the Mississippi River….
By the end of this month, the Coast Guard’s Bridge Administration Branch will announce how it will distribute stimulus funds to alter obstructive bridges. When the words gets out, operators on the Illinois and Upper Mississippi rivers should be pleased, said Roger Wiebusch, bridge administrator for the Eighth Coast Guard District.
Speaking to the Illinois River Carriers Association meeting in St. Louis March 9, Wiebusch said that of the 12 bridges currently listed as “obstructive” under the Truman Hobbs Act, two are on the Illinois and six are on the Upper Mississippi River. Three others are on the Gulf Coast, and one is in Boston.
Under the Truman-Hobbs Act, if a bridge is declared obstructive to navigation—through a lengthy process that includes a public hearing—the federal government will pay to have it altered to remove the obstruction. Ordinarily this means tearing down the existing bridge and building a new bridge with a wider span. However, the process depends on Congress appropriating money to fund the alteration, and over the years the appropriations have been too small to begin the needed work.
For the EJ&E Railroad Bridge near Morris, Ill., perhaps the most well-known bridge on the list, the Coast Guard needs $30 million to begin the replacement job. But Congress has only been doling out $1 million or so a year dedicated toward the project, and the fund is less than halfway to the $30 million….
Internet-based licensing renewal may be “addressed” as early as this summer.
That was the answer given to industry by Capt. David Stalfort, commander of the Coast Guard’s new National Maritime Center, said American Waterways Operators Inc. president Merritt Lane III in response to a question at the 2009 Inland Waterways Conference in Nashville on March 3.
But a system for the Coast Guard to electronically verify documents will have to wait because of a requirement that it be synchronized with systems of the Transportation Security Administration. The TSA will take over fingerprinting duties so the Coast Guard “can get out of the fingerprinting business,” said Stalfort in his own presentation at the conference…
Two crewmen were apparently lost overboard in separate incidents within a week on the Lower Mississippi River.
On March 10, the crew on the Jeffrey G, a 145-foot towboat, could not find Jackson Ragan, 18, from Aubrey, Ark., about 11 p.m. After searching the boat for him for about an hour with no success, the crew called the Coast Guard about midnight.
The Coast Guard responded with a 41-foot rescue boat and launched a HH-65 Dolphin helicopter from Air Station New Orleans. In addition, boats responded from the Port of South Louisiana and from the St. John the Baptist Parish Sheriff’s Office. As of the morning of March 12, Ragan had not been found.
The search was being conducted between the bridge in Gramercy, La., at Mile 145 down to Mile 110 just above New Orleans….
Less than 25 years ago, wheelmen who wanted to plot the closest point of approach (CPA) of a target used little wooden popsicle sticks and drew lines directly on the radar’s glass screen with yellow grease pencils.
Today, with the press of a button, the automatic radar plotting aid (ARPA) feature on sophisticated radar sets can acquire 10 targets and can give estimated CPAs within a minute, firming it up to a very reliable CPA in three minutes on all 10 targets.
The Automatic Identification System (AIS) will effectively look around a bend for a captain, showing him the exact location, speed and course of opposing commercial traffic.
Electronics have helped wheelmen deal with changes in the commercial towing industry as tows get bigger and horsepower gets higher. It is a needed advantage, as crews on towing vessels seldom, if ever, have the luxury of additional crewmembers that would be available on deep-draft vessels.
“Heck, in the past 10–20 years it’s just about the electronics, in the engine controls and GPS,” said marine surveyor Dick Frenzel, who also holds a wheelhouse license. “How about 50 years ago when we still had steering wheels, single engines, and bells and whistles to the engineer down below who controlled the direct-reversible 400 rpm. engine. The AM radio took about 15 seconds to warm up after you pressed the transmit button to talk on 2738 frequency.”
The first twin-screw vessel with sticks and flanking rudders appeared on the Texas coast in the mid 1950s, he said.
“Boy, was this kid proud when I learned how to move an empty barge sideways to the dock!” Frenzel said. “Talk about pilothouse technology.”…
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