Photo Credit: U.S. Coast Guard
Posted on 03/11/2011 6:20:04 AM PST by Bean Counter
Getting the derelict barge Davy Crockett out of the Columbia River will take at least 75 more days, Coast Guard officials say, with costs probably topping $7.5 million.
The Coast Guard, Oregon and Washington officials and contractor Ballard Diving & Salvage are trying to stabilize the 431-foot-long vessel, remove debris and machinery, patch holes and drain fuel before it leaks. Tentative plans include cutting the rusting hulk at least in two and towing the pieces to a ship yard or dry dock for dismantling.
The work has cost $5.3 million to date, with a total of $7.5 million anticipated to stabilize the ship and cut it in pieces.
That figure doesn't include costs of further dismantling the barge and disposing of it, said Capt. Daniel LeBlanc, commander of the Coast Guard's Portland-based marine safety unit and the on-scene coordinator for the Davy Crockett cleanup.
"My job is to spend the taxpayers' money as frugally as possible," LeBlanc said. "But to do these things right costs money."
The costs are covered the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund, which collects a nickel tax on each barrel of oil produced in or imported into the United States.
Fund officials can pursue vessel owners for cost recovery, though its unclear whether current owner Bret Simpson of Ellensburg, Wash., or prior owners have the resources to cover the costs. An investigation of Simpson is ongoing, Coast Guard officials say.
The Davy Crockett, a converted Liberty ship from World War II, has been moored for years between Camas and Vancouver on the north side of the Columbia, four miles upstream of the I-205 bridge.
The Coast Guard ordered removal of hazardous substances from the vessel in April 2009. In January, Coast Guard inspectors responded to reports of an oil sheen around the barge and declared the problem fixed.
But a week later, on Jan. 27, the barge buckled in half, probably as a result of the owner removing parts for scrap. That led to an 11-mile-long "mystery sheen" of fuel that regulators traced from Vancouver to the ship, likely lubricating oil with low levels of toxic PCBs.
Since then, workers have deployed nearly 20,000 feet of oil containment and absorbent booms around the ship, according to Davy Crockett response updates from Washington's Department of Ecology.
Divers have pulled out more than 600,000 pounds of debris to help stabilize the barge, pumped out about 65,000 gallons of oily water and removed most structures from the deck. The vessel is parked outside the Columbia's shipping channel.
At this point, the greatest risk of pollution is from old bunker fuel, about the consistency of peanut butter, that has leaked into the space between the Dave Crockett's two hulls from bow to stern, LeBlanc said. Ballard divers are patching holes to guard against leaks as well as draining the bunker fuel, he said.
Plans are still tentative, but the first phase of the salvage operation will probably be cutting the ship in half along the fault line created by the owner's salvage work, then transporting the 229-foot-long stern section to a ship yard or dry dock.
Workers would use assist tugs and perhaps latch the stern section to a floating barge to make sure it stayed upright and afloat, LeBlanc said.
Naval architects are still determining the best approach for the bow section, which could be cut into more than one piece.
Salvaging the bow out of the water would cut pollution risk, LeBlanc said, but the bow section or sections have to be stable enough to float to a dry dock or salvage yard. Inwater salvaging remains a possibility, but would require much more extensive booms to guard against polluting the river.
Brett VandenHeuvel, Columbia Riverkeeper's executive director, favors the dry dock approach.
"They'll obviously have to be careful transporting it," he said. "But to scrap it and clean it up in the river is a problem. We support trying to get that thing out of the water."
-- Scott Learn; Twitter @slearn1
Oregon & Washington *ping*, please...
ok I like diving, but I think I’d have to pass on where those guys are going.
....when I was stationed at Ft Eustis,VA there was a ‘mothball fleet’ of Liberty ships moored nearby....they probably should have been scrapped by now....surely they couldn’t be seaworthy after all these years.
Here in Washington when you pay for your boat license, there is a derelict fee or tax added to it. No kidding. Us with good boats have to pay to get rid of others derelict boats.
This brings back memories. When I lived in Alaska growing up they had two Liberty ships that they had run aground and filled with rocks to make a dock. Don’t imagine that they worried any about oil leaking out (this was the 60’s). They are still there rusting away.
We returned to the slip. We fueled up before we put her into the slip.We met a Tow Boat operator that told us a large yacht was sinking off the coast and the Coast Guard was heading out. We told him we saw the guy and we then all realized what this guy was doing. He was sinking the 60 foot wooden craft. No marina would allow them into a slip because that is how owners walk away from disposal. Some marinas wanted $10,000 up front for these big old boats to come in and use the slip. That dude was sinking the old craft on purpose and probably endagering many boaters. Wrecks are charted on GPS. Not this one. I do not know if the boat sinker was ever caught. We never got a call from the Coast Guard.
It seems to me that a wall could have been pounded in place around it and saved a lot of time and money ,, dismantle it in place..
They are talking about cutting the stern free and floating it out intact. If they cannot get the bow out the same way they may cofferdam it, pump it out, and scrap the hull. The problems with that are many, including the river current, condition of the bottom of the river at that spot and the additional costs involved. No telling what a cofferdam would cost but it won’t be cheap.
The problem here is that the vessel had a crew aboard last fall illegally trying to scrap it in the water. They literally hollowed out most of the front half of the vessel and the only thing left in places is the outer shell plating. One of those pictures shows one of the fore and aft structural stringers bent like a pretzel, and where that big empty space is, there should be more stringers.
Absolutely illegal in every way you can think, but they worked on it for a couple of months unbothered by any number of agencies that could have (and should have!) intervened years ago.
And there are at least 10 more vessels on the lower Columbia River that are just as vulnerable to illegal salvage efforts.
Our tax dollars at work.
Those salvage divers were a different breed of cat.
“ok I like diving, but I think I’d have to pass on where those guys are going.”
That’s gotta be extreme drift diving there.
Definately NOT a pleasure dive. I’ve been in situations where visibilty is so poor you literally cannot see your hand on your mask lens.
Having logged more than 6000 dives, and as comfortable as a fish in water, that kinda low vis is spooky to say the least.
I’ve done the low vis diving off Venice beach here in Florida (Gulf Coast). Looking for fossilized sharks teeth.
Visibility at times is about 6” until you start stirring up the sand, then it drops. You try not to think about all the bull sharks in those waters while you’re doing that.
I wouldn’t want to dive in the contaminated water these guys are in. Granted its not very deep but it would be a nasty way to die.
Say WA? Evergreen State ping
Quick link: WA State Board
FReepmail sionnsar if you want on or off this ping list.
Ping sionnsar if you see a Washington state related thread.
Say WA? Evergreen State ping
Quick link: WA State Board
FReepmail sionnsar if you want on or off this ping list.
Ping sionnsar if you see a Washington state related thread.
Part of my commercial dive training was conducting operations (other than welding:) with the face plate masked off.
I know an old guy that was a navy demolition guy. One of the trainings they did was to take abart a storage tank at the bottom of the river/bay - out east - Cheasapeake? He said the first time he went down he couldn’t find the tank. I suppose with radio he said he couldn’t find it, and the guys all had a good laugh - and then told him “look above you!”
The silt/muck was so fine that he had sunk into it while the larger tank was higher up in the muck. But all muck nonetheless!
I dove a farm pond with a metal detector looking for a diamond wedding ring. It was soo dark I couldn't see out of my mask. Had to work by sound (detector)and feel.By the way I didn't find the ring.
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