Weekly News Summary For June 12-18, 2006:
Industry Sounds Off On Proposed TWIC Rulemaking
More time and additional venues were the overriding messages to the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and U.S. Coast Guard at the third of four public meetings held to elicit comments on the Transportation Worker Identification Card (TWIC) program June 6 in St. Louis.
Other meetings were held May 31 in Newark, N.J.; June 1 in Tampa, Fla.; and June 7 in Long Beach, Calif.
Those in attendance had a laundry list of concerns regarding the TWIC program, including the costs, travel time and other expenses necessary to obtain a card, costs of purchasing and installing card readers and other associated technologies, and difficulty of hiring and staffing vessels. TWICs would take 30–60 days to be processed, preventing a new hire from beginning work immediately.
The proposed TWIC rule would allow TSA to collect workers’ biographic information including fingerprints, name, date of birth, address, phone number, alien registration number (if applicable), photo, employer and job title.
All individuals with unescorted access to secure areas of an estimated 3,500 port facilities and 10,800 vessels regulated under the Maritime Security Act would be required to have the biometric TWIC. This includes longshoremen, port operator employees, truck drivers and rail workers. U.S. Merchant Mariners who hold an active Merchant Mariner’s Document, Merchant Mariner’s License, Certificate of Registry or an STCW Endorsement would also be required to obtain a TWIC….
Florida Marine Transporters Inc., Mandeville, La., christened three of its history-making new builds May 23 in Houston. The 90- by 32-foot, 2,600 hp. towboats are the first of an unprecedented 25-boat run.
Eastern Shipbuilding Group is building the vessels at its Allanton Road shipyard in Panama City, Fla.
“I can’t recall there ever being that many boats built in a single string,” said industry veteran and marine surveyor Capt. Norman Antrainer. “It shows real confidence in the hull of the boat, doesn’t it?”
Antrainer of Covington, La., owner of Antrainer Marine Services, was part of the group that met several times a week with Florida Marine’s owner, Dennis Pasentine, to design the perfect boat for service on the Intracoastal Waterway and the Lower Mississippi River.
The others were naval architect Mike Hassett of Brymar Marine plus project manager Ned Couret and senior captain Jerry Jones, both with Florida Marine.
During the winter of 2004, when the group started thinking about the project, “there were a lot of factors in the market that pointed against doing it,” Couret said, the foremost being the cost and unpredictable availability of steel….
Less than six months after suddenly sinking on the Tennessee River near Calvert City, Ky., (WJ December 26, 2005), the 3,000 hp. Elly Lane has returned to service for Canal Barge Company.
The 102- by 30-foot vessel departed Paducah June 1 en route to Cairo with one load and returned a day later with 15 empty barges for delivery to a rock-loading dock at Empire, Ill. The next day, it was heading up the Cumberland River, light boat, to pick up a 12-barge rock tow, showing no signs of its unexpected immersion last winter.
Renovation
Following assessment of damages when raised several days after it sank, the 32-year-old vessel was moved to National Maintenance & Repair in Paducah for complete renovation and refurbishing under the watchful eye of Capt. John W. Moon, retired vice president of operations for Canal Barge Company. Moon arrived in early February to oversee the project.
National Maintenance removed and reinstalled the EMD12-645E6 engines and Reintjes reduction gears, which were completely overhauled and serviced by EMD Services International and Karl Senner Inc., both of New Orleans. Meanwhile, the interior of the vessel was being stripped down to the bare steel….
The Department of Labor has decided that it would be in the public interest to re-establish the Maritime Advisory Committee for Occupational Safety and Health (MACOSH).
The committee will advise the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) on matters relevant to the safety and health of workers in the maritime industry, including employers in the shipbuilding, ship repair, shipbreaking, longshoring and marine terminal industries. The committee’s advice to OSHA will include maritime issues that will result in streamlined regulatory efforts and more effective enforcement, training and outreach programs.
The committee charter will be filed June 20….
State law enforcement officials in Louisiana now have the authority to stop, board vessels and enforce federal security zone laws, according to a press release by Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco’s office.
Louisiana became the fourth state to sign a maritime security partnership with the Eighth Coast Guard District on June 2, joining Texas, Ohio and Pennsylvania, who have already established agreements, the release said.
Gov. Blanco’s office said President George W. Bush signed into law the Coast Guard Maritime Security Act in August 2004, which, among other things, “empowers any state or local government law enforcement officer who has the authority to enforce state criminal laws, to also enforce violations of federal safety and security zones….”
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