Weekly News Summary For April 7-13, 2008:
High water and treacherous currents on the Lower Mississippi River prompted the U.S. Coast Guard’s Sector Lower Mississippi River to restrict downbound traffic through the bridges at Memphis, Vicksburg and Greenville to daylight transit only, beginning April 1.
Lt. Cmdr. Wayne Arguin, chief of prevention, said a number of groundings and two back-to-back bridge strikes triggered the action, which was taken in conjunction with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Lower Mississippi River Committee. Reportedly, two barges sank after hitting the Vicksburg bridge, but are not in the channel.
The safety zone will remain in effect until the river subsides, he said…
Three bodies had been recovered and one person remained missing five days after a 32-foot pleasure boat was struck by a commercial tow near Wilson Lock and Dam on the Tennessee River at Florence, Ala., March 27.
A Coast Guard press release said the towboat Potomac reported it had collided with a pleasure boat around 8 p.m. The boat sank quickly following the collision, during darkness near a lakeside subdivision with homes ringing the shoreline above the dam.
The first victim was recovered within two hours of the accident. He was identified as William Hill, Jr., 59, from Sheffield, Ala., and was reported to be the owner of the sunken cruiser.
Three days later, Tennessee Valley Authority Police Captain Joe Kelley said divers recovered the bodies of Ray Peters, 53, and Patti Jo Manley, 50, both of Hamilton, Ala., from the wreckage of the boat, which sank in 80 feet of water. The blue-and-white-trimmed boat with its radar arch sheered off and its flying bridge windshield destroyed, was partially raised by personnel aboard a Corps of Engineers crane barge handled by the Warrioto and the smaller Tennessee. The mangled wreckage was towed downstream to the Corps’ Fleet Harbor base immediately above the lock, where it was lifted out and set on a trailer for further inspection. The boat was reported still on the trailer April 1…
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency last week released a new rule to clarify how to provide compensatory mitigation for unavoidable impacts to the nation’s wetlands and streams. The rule is designed to promote greater consistency, predictability and ecological success of mitigation projects under the Clean Water Act.
“This rule greatly improves implementation, monitoring, and performance, and will help us ensure that unavoidable losses of aquatic resources and functions are replaced for the benefit of this nation,” said John Paul Woodley Jr., assistant secretary of the Army-civil works, in the announcement. “This is a key step in our efforts to make the Army’s regulatory program a winner, and the best it can be for the regulated community we serve and those interested in both economic development and environmental protection.”
“This rule advances the president’s goals of halting overall loss of wetlands and improving watershed health through sound science, market-based approaches, and cooperative conservation,” said Benjamin H. Grumbles, Environmental Protection Agency assistant administrator for water. “The new standards will accelerate our wetlands conservation efforts under the Clean Water Act by establishing more effective, more consistent, and more innovative mitigation practices.”…
“This is a drill. This is a drill. This is a drill.”
With those words, a Marine Safety Bulletin issued March 26 by Coast Guard Sector New Orleans began a drill that included establishing a fixed security zone around all oil and gas facilities on the Lower Mississippi River from Mile 10 to Mile 235.
It was one of the largest drills of its kind, with 77 regulated facilities and 102 vessels participating. The scenario included a simulated attack with chemical spill at a facility and an explosion onboard a passenger ferry boat.
“Of the four security exercises I have been involved with over the last four years, this exercise was by far the largest, most complex, and had the greatest involvement of key players in the region, including the U.S. attorney, the FBI’s SAC, Louisiana’s governor’s office and the UASI (Urban Area Security Initiative) director for New Orleans,” Captain Lincoln Stroh, commander of Sector New Orleans, told The Waterways Journal…
Lange-Stegmann Company, St. Louis, Mo, may be the largest wholesale fertilizer supply company on the inland river system, and it is still growing.
In 2005, the company contracted with Marcus Construction Company to build a warehouse capable of handling 63,000 tons of fertilizer at their river terminal just north of downtown St. Louis on the Missouri side.
The building, complete as of December 2007, has more than three acres of shingled roof, said Jim Bach, director of sales and marketing for Marcus. The massive 91,000-square-foot building is clear of moisture and contamination, according to Michael Stegmann, president of Lange-Stegmann.
Dubbed the St. Louis Urea Center, the building is now the center of an efficient multimodal facility.
Most of the fertilizer arrives by barge. At a rate of four barges per day, fertilizer can be unloaded at the newly renovated river dock. Then, via a new conveyor system, product is either sent directly to truck or rail or stored in the new building. From the building, grates in the floor lead to another conveyor system that can load both trucks and rail cars as needed…
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