Weekly News Summary For November 16–22, 2009:
Working late into the night on Wednesday, November 11, Coast Guard and Corps of Engineers officials were able to open the last stretch of the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway (GIWW) to commercial marine traffic following fast-moving Hurricane Ida, according to reports compiled by Raymond Butler, executive director of the Gulf Intracoastal Canal Association (GICA).
The last section to be opened was from mile 290 EHL eastward. Vessel traffic was opened from the Panama City Ship Channel, Mile 290 EHL, westward earlier that evening.
“We’re nearing the end of this storm saga,” Butler said. He gave credit “for going the extra mile” to the Coast Guard aids to navigation team at Panama City along with Capt. Steve Poulin, commander of Sector Mobile, Lt. Jon Mangum, BMC Rule and the entire crew at Coast Guard Sector Mobile, along with Duane Poiroux, Terry Jangula and the Corps of Engineers.
But even with the waterways open, a Marine Safety Information Bulletin from Capt. J. Scott Paradis, captain of the port of Morgan City, warned mariners, “Although preliminary waterway surveys and overflights have not revealed navigational hazards or obstructions on the open waterways, all mariners transiting the waterways are urged to use extreme caution,” and report any hazards, shoaling or damaged navigational aids to navigation.
Ida shut down shipping at the mouth of the Mississippi River for vessels requiring pilots. Reports said the last bar pilot to board an inbound vessel was November 8 at 10 p.m. But by 6 a.m. on November 10, Coast Guard Sector New Orleans had begun prioritizing vessel arrivals, asking agents and facility operators to send all priority entry requests with justification to the PSC/Arrivals Division….
River carriers are concerned about delays in shipping to and from Chicago that might be caused by a possible closure of the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal sometime in early December.
Representatives of most major carriers, including Kirby, Ingram, Magnolia Marine, ARTCO, AEP River Operations, Florida Marine, Illinois Marine Towing, Marquette Transportation, American Commercial Lines, and Cal River Fleeting, met with Bill Bowen, an official of the Environmental Protection Agency, at St. Louis November 10. The meeting took place during a meeting of the Illinois River Carriers Association.
According to those present, Bowen said the EPA might have to release a fish-killing chemical, Rotenone, into the canal to enable a shut-down for maintenance of Barrier IIA, the two-volts-per-inch electric barrier that is currently keeping Asian carp out of the Great Lakes.
Rotenone is registered with the EPA as an approved fish-killing substance. Derived from natural substances, it works by coating fish gills and inhibiting their ability to use oxygen in the water, suffocating them. Only private pesticide applicators can normally purchase it. It breaks down and leaves waters safe for restocking in five or six weeks.
The Rotenone would be released along a five-mile stretch of the canal in early December, between Barrier IIA and the Lockport Lock, resulting in an estimated 100,000 to 200,000 pounds of dead fish to be harvested. Once Barrier IIA is shut down, only a demonstration barrier with half the voltage will stand between the carp and the lakes. Bowen said the process would take between five and seven days. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which is responsible for the fish barriers, would perform the repairs….
A barge terminal, originally planned to have five berths, to serve the needs of ThyssenKrupp’s carbon steel plant on the Tombigbee River near Mobile, is due to open within a couple of weeks, according to a ThyssenKrupp spokesperson.
“The barge terminal is nearly complete; cranes are being assembled right now,” said Erica Day, assistant to Scott Posey, director of communications for ThyssenKrupp Steel USA. That division is responsible for the carbon steel plant, which is expected to open early next year. ThyssenKrupp Stainless USA is responsible for the stainless steel plant.
Day said the decision had not yet been made whether or not to outsource the operation of the barge terminal. The carbon steel plant will be completed before the stainless plant, although the company now says that both are expected to be online in 2010.
In March, ThyssenKrupp had announced delays in the terminal construction that were part of a package of delays and deferments designed to spread out costs in the face of a global recession and plummeting demand for steel….
Nine public and tribal focus group meetings in support of the Missouri River Authorized Purposes Study (MRAPS) are being sponsored by the Army Corps of Engineers. The meetings will stretch over several months and will be conducted in various locations throughout the Missouri River basin as well as sites along the Mississippi River.
The first meeting will be held on November 19 in Kansas City, Kan., at the Kansas Public Library, 625 Minnesota Ave., from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.
The second meeting will be held on December 8, in Bismarck, N.D., at the Bismarck Veterans Memorial Public Library, 515 North Fifth Street, from 5–8 p.m. Future meetings are scheduled in January and February of 2010
An independent facilitator will conduct the meetings. Invited participants will provide input on the authorized purposes in the Missouri River basin and appropriate communications strategies for the study. The public will have the opportunity near the end of the meeting to provide comments….
As anyone who has been to a field trial for retrievers knows, the trainer that can really “call the dog” gets the best results. And so it was that Tim Hovas memorably described the performance of a boat he built earlier this year for Terral RiverService. He is the president of NewSouth Marine Construction Inc. in Greenville, Miss., where there is a lot of bird hunting.
Terral RiverService christened a sister vessel to that boat October 7. Hovas wouldn’t go so far as to say the new towboat, the Johnny M, can “call the dog” any better than the Christy T, but it definitely gets the same good results, he said.
“We sea-trialed the Johnny M with six loaded hoppers, northbound with high seasonal water levels. It passed a northbound 2,000 hp. vessel with eight empties, and exceeded its speed by two mph. A similar situation was noted with a northbound 5,600 hp. boat pushing 28 empties. The Johnny M exceeded the larger vessel by 1.8 mph.”
The boat is named for Johnny Martin, who has been with Terral RiverService for 23 years and is now the company’s marine superintendent. He started out on the river when he got tired of working at the local TGY department store in the Mississippi River town of St. Joseph, La., where he grew up….
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