Barge Leaking Oil in Galveston Bay After Collision

Heard a snippet on the local news channel mentioning this accident...

Nearly a million gallons on board, and the reporter on TV said the barge sunk.. which seems to be unconfirmed in this article..:

ABCNews Link

A barge carrying 924,000 gallons of thick, tarry fuel oil collided Saturday with another ship in the Houston ship channel and was leaking oil, officials said.

The U.S. Coast Guard said in a statement Saturday that it received a call at about 12:30 p.m. from the captain of the 585-foot ship Summer Wind reporting its collision with a barge.

The barge was being towed from Texas City to Bolivar at the time. Kirby Inland Marine, owner of the tow vessel Miss Susan and the barges, is working with the Coast Guard and Texas General Land Office at the scene, according to the Coast Guard. The Coast Guard did not give an estimate of how much oil had leaked into Galveston Bay.

A sheen of oil was been reported on the water, but it was unknown how much oil had leaked, the statement said. Six crew members of the tow vessel are all in stable condition.

www.tylerpaper.com...

I live in Galveston and hadn't heard anything about this till now. Must be keeping it quiet because of all the spring break tourists here right now...

Double post

I hope the captain wasn't drunk.

reply to post by captb13


update...

Crews Try to Contain Oil Spill in Galveston Bay

...Booms were brought in to try to contain the spill, which the Coast Guard said was reported at around 12:30 p.m. by the captain of the 585-foot ship, Summer Wind. Coast Guard Lt. j.g. Kristopher Kidd said the spill hadn't been contained as of 10 p.m., and that the collision was still being investigated.

The ship collided with a barge carrying 924,000 gallons of marine fuel oil, also known as special bunker, that was being towed by the vessel Miss Susan, the Coast Guard said. It didn't give an estimate of how much fuel had spilled into the bay, but there was a visible sheen of oil at the scene.

Officials believe only one of the barge's tanks was breached, but that tank had a capacity of 168,000 gallons.

"A large amount of that has been discharged," Kidd said. He said a plan was being developed to remove the remaining oil from the barge, but the removal had not begun.

The barge was resting on the bottom of the channel, with part of it submerged. He said boom was being set up in the water to protect environmentally-sensitive areas and that people would be working through the night with infrared cameras to locate and skim the oil...

reply to post by JacKatMtn


Where I work, we have a dock, didn't see anything when I left this morning, but will check again when I get there later this evening. I'll post pics if there's oil.

the gulf of Mexico is going to become one big sewer pond...when I go to the store, the guy at the fish counter says that they don't even stock any seafood or crustacean from the gulf of Mexico, because nobody bought it and they have to get rid of it....and I will not go to New Orleans anymore...went there is the early 2000's for a weeks vacation with my family, and it was a dump, and now every piece of seafood there is suspect...you can have it. and if anyone is thinking of moving there or doing business, they have a whole different legal system...and you better make sure you know it or you can get screwed by the locals.

reply to post by JacKatMtn


Got a call yesterday when this happened from the TC office of Emergency Management regarding this stating that the dike and skyline drive had been closed due to the accident.

The dike is a pretty good money maker for the city on weekends, so for them to have shut it down tells me that the situation is more than trivial.

If I hear anything more, I will make sure to post.

Here's a YT clip on the accident in Galveston..



Most reports are suggesting that only one of six tanks on the barge was actually leaking, which would limit the total release to 160k Gals, which isn't great at all, but much lower than the nearly 1 million gallon potential if the barge lost it's entire contents.

reply to post by jadedANDcynical


No oil where I'm at, but talking to people this morning saying there's oil on the east beach. The Houston paper had pics of dead birds covered in oil, the ferry is closed, and the only ship traffic allowed will be the cruise ships once they clear a path for them. My wife says there's a nasty smell in the air, but I worked offshore for a while so I guess I just got used to it.

Well this time how about giving Sea Brat manufacturer ashout instead of the manufacturers of Corexit