GNOBFA Highlights Strength Of Collaboration

This issue, focusing on the often overlooked barge fleeting sector, highlights the role of the Greater New Orleans Barge Fleeting Association. A generation of founders and leaders of GNOBFA worked closely with the Coast Guard in the early 1970s to craft regulations and standards that made barge fleeting — and therefore barge operations in general — both safer and more efficient.

Nothing could be more American than the story of GNOBFA. Alexis de Tocqueville, the great French observer of and commentator on American democracy, called the “art of association” the heart of American democracy — private citizens organizing to solve common problems or achieve common goals, working with the government, when necessary, as partners.

It was a truly collaborative effort. The Coast Guard had been given legal authorities in 1972 to regulate vessel movements in the Lower Mississippi and elsewhere, but in those early meetings with waterways industry leaders, they relied on their deep experience. For their part, industry leaders knew things had to change. The rivers were getting more crowded, and breakaways were multiplying.

Those regulations, embodied in federal codes, have stood the test of time. The handbook created by the two together, “Barge Fleeting Standard of Care and Streamline Inspection Program Guide Book,” remains in use today. The GNOBFA River and Marine Industry Seminar, created as a forum to improve and increase communication among industry leaders, insurers, attorneys, the Coast Guard and Corps of Engineers, also is still going strong, inspiring similar efforts in other port cities.