Over the weekend, the U.S. Coast Guard announced that 17-miles of the Mississippi River has been reopened with restrictions following its closure last Wednesday. The stretch of the river had been closed after a collision between two boats caused more than 12,000 gallons of oil to be spilled into the waterways.
The collision, which occurred at roughly 8 PM on September 2nd, had reportedly ruptured a cargo tank on the barge, spilling some of the of the refinery byproduct the cargo tank was carrying into the river. According to Coast Guard Petty Officer Lora Ratliff, the barge was carrying approximately 1 million gallons; however, because the breach was contained to just one of the barges six tanks, only 12,000 gallons of the oil spilled into the river.
The river was then closed after an aerial assessment spotted “a five-mile discoloration” that started at the site of the collision.
In an interview with Common Dreams Tim Joice, Water Policy Director for the Louisville-based Kentucky Waterways Alliance, said that incidents such as an “oil spill, fracking operation, coal slurry spill, or failure from a coal ash pond,” is “illustrative of the reality we face—that we have a fossil fuel economy and we need to move beyond that.”
Joice further added that despite the industry’s ability to skew statistics relating to the safety of these fossil fuel transportation methods, the “reality is that none of it is safe. We will have accidents.”
The Coast Guard is currently awaiting the results of the water samples and sediment quality tests that were conducted to determine the damage caused to the river.
Image Credit: U.S. Coast Guard
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