Tow industry, Coast Guard berated for Mississippi River oil spill

Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., let it be known during a Sept. 16 hearing that there was plenty of blame to go around the tow industry and Coast Guard for a recent oil spill on the Lower Mississippi River.

Cummings, who serves as chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee's subcommittee on the Coast Guard and maritime transportation, presided over a hearing pertaining to the July 23 collision between a tow barge and tanker, which resulted in the release of nearly 300,000 gallons of oil from a damaged barge. About 100 miles of river from New Orleans to the Gulf of Mexico were closed to vessel traffic for six days, and clean-up operations lasted well into mid-August.

Investigators discovered that the tow vessel Mel Oliver was being operated at the time of the accident by a person with an apprentice mate's license without a licensed master in the wheel house, a blatant violation of Coast Guard regulations.

DRD Towing, the firm operating the Mel Oliver, had a history of run-ins with the Coast Guard for operating vessels without properly licensed personnel, Cummings noted in his opening statement. Less than two weeks before the accident involving the Mel Oliver, DRD operated the tow vessel Ruby E with a person holding only an apprentice mate's license when the vessel sank.

Cummings pointed out that DRD was a member of the American Waterways Operators at the time of the Mel Oliver incident, and in May the firm failed the safety audit that the industry association requires as a condition for membership.

The subcommittee chairman then chastised American Commercial Lines (ACL), owner of the Mel Oliver, which chartered the vessel to DRD.

This arrangement does not appear to have been designed to generate revenues for ACL, Cummings said. Rather, it appears to have been designed to enable ACL to operate its vessel at the cheapest possible costs, by shifting maintenance responsibilities and more importantly, the hiring of crew members onto DRD, a firm that was obviously ill-prepared to meet these responsibilities but with which ACL had nonetheless done business for a decade.

Lastly, Cummings criticized the Coast Guard for failing to implement inspection requirements for towing vessels, which Congress passed into law in 2004. This rulemaking remains one of more than 100 pending with the service, Cummings said.

The spill had the potential to be more environmentally devastating, but credit was given to ACL and the Coast Guard for their rapid response. The Unified Command successfully coordinated the recovery and restoration of (the) area's marine transportation system, said Rear Adm. James Watson of the Coast Guard.

The U.S. tugboat, towboat and barge industry is vast, operating nearly 4,000 tugboats and towboats and more than 27,000 dry and liquid cargo barges on the inland rivers; on the Atlantic, Pacific and Gulf coasts; on the Great Lakes; and in the ports and harbors around the country. The American Waterways Operators estimated that more than 800 million tons of cargo are safely transported via this mode each year.

However, Tom Allegretti, president and chief executive officer of the American Waterways Operators, told the subcommittee that the Mel Oliver accident is a sobering reminder that while we are proud of our industry's safety record and the dramatic declines in accidents and spills that we have achieved over the past decade, we are not yet where we need to be. We can, and must, do better. Zero spills is our goal.

Five years ago, a congressionally authorized Towing Safety Advisory Committee (TSAC) was formed to make recommendations to the Coast Guard on the development of the towing vessel inspection regulations.

The American Waterways Operators offered a set of recommendations to the subcommittee in order to move the towing vessel inspection program forward:

   The Coast Guard needs to publish a notice of proposed rulemaking by the end of the year, based on the recommendations of the TSAC.

   The Coast Guard should institute a targeted enforcement program that focuses on towing companies known to have marginal operating practices and safety records.

   The American Waterways Operators will develop a procedure to provide its member companies with real-time information when a company fails a Responsible Carrier Program audit.

   The Coast Guard should work with the TSAC to review Navigation and Vessel Inspection Circular (NVIC) 4-01, which provides guidance on implementing the towing vessel officer licensing regulations, and make needed clarifications and improvements.

   Under the TSAC-recommended approach to towing vessel inspection, failing a safety audit would trigger immediate notification of the Coast Guard, which would force the company to correct the problem or get its vessels off the water, Allegretti said. "A company's vessels could lose their license to operate -- their Certificates of Inspection -- in the case of serious safety management system violations.

   To put teeth in the program without creating unnecessary burdens for the vast majority of companies who work hard to do the right thing, TSAC has recommended a risk-based enforcement regime in which companies with questionable safety records or poor performance on safety audits would be subject to the lion's share of Coast Guard enforcement rules, he said. 

Source: American Shipper