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Barge spill highlights hurricane hazards November Gulf spill due to submerged drilling platform; owners didn’t have lighted buoy at wreck; 167 storm-damaged platforms The Associated Press
A double-hulled tanker barge spilled more than one million gallons of oil in the Gulf of Mexico last year after hitting a submerged drilling platform wrecked by Hurricane Rita, the Coast Guard says.
The Nov. 11 spill off the coasts of Louisiana and Port Arthur, Texas — and the $35 million cleanup associated with it — might have been avoided if the owners of the oil platform had marked the submerged wreck with a lighted buoy, as required under federal law, Coast Guard officials told the Mobile Register for a story Jan. 20.
The barge operator, K-Sea Transportation, based in Staten Island, N.Y., paid for the cleanup, but future litigation is expected against the owner of the platform, Coast Guard environmental specialist Patrick Cuty in New Orleans told The Associated Press on Jan. 20. Marker at wreck not lighted The wrecked platform, owned by Houston-based Targa Resources, was marked only with floating plastic balls described as “cherry fenders.” Such buoys are not lighted and would be difficult to see at midnight, when the accident happened.
Targa spokesman Joe Bob Perkins said Jan. 20 there were no lights on the WC-229 platform, but “it was marked” and the location was well known to mariners. He said the barge was “significantly” off course when it struck the platform.
“The Coast Guard advised all mariners of the location of the sunken platform and that it was only marked with unlighted buoys,” Perkins told the AP.
The damaged 442-foot barge, now floating upside down at a dock off Mobile Bay, has been drained. A gash in the hull is 35 feet long and 6 feet wide.
The fuel oil on board was so heavy it sank to the seafloor as it gushed from three separate cargo holds and, according to Coast Guard news releases, has not washed up on any shorelines.
An estimated 134,400 gallons of the spilled oil was recovered from the seafloor. But rough weather immediately after the accident thwarted cleanup efforts for days at a time. The barge held 9.3 million gallons. At least 167 platforms damaged Federal records show at least 167 Gulf platforms were damaged or destroyed during the active 2005 hurricane season, the Register said.
Many of these are now submerged or so damaged that the warning beacons on them no longer function, and federal officials acknowledge they have no idea how many have working marker lights.
The Register said that www.tradewinds.no, an online shipping trade journal, reported in December that Coast Guard officials had instructed Targa Resources to install a lighted buoy over the wrecked platform.
According to the Tradewinds article, Targa Resources was “unable to locate one amid an equipment shortage in the aftermath of back-to-back Gulf hurricanes.”
Targa’s spokesman said Jan. 20 the Coast Guard approved using unlit buoys and advised Targa it could deploy lighted buoys when they became available and when crews and ships could be found to deploy the buoys.
According to the Code of Federal Regulations, it is the responsibility of the owner of a wrecked platform to ensure that it is appropriately marked.
Officials at Coast Guard headquarters said the agency does not have an inspection process to determine if the wrecked platforms have been properly marked. But, they said, companies are subject to fines if they are found to have shirked the buoy requirement.
Targa has cooperated fully with the Coast Guard’s investigation of the barge’s accident, the company spokesman said, and no action has been taken against Targa.
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