Tanker runs aground in Miss. River renewing questions about safety

By Zoe Sullivan
The Louisiana Weekly

On Monday, June 13, an oil tanker, the M/T Ratna Punja, ran aground in the Mississippi River. In spite of the efforts of five tug boats to move it, the ship stayed stuck until late Wednesday morning. Those involved with navigation on the river say that this grounding is the result of silt accumulation, which would ordinarily be dredged by the Army Corps of Engineers. The Corps doesn’t have the budget to maintain the river’s channel, and as flood season fades and the river’s water level drops, this spells trouble for commercial traffic.

In the wake of last year’s oil spill and a collision that led to oil from a tanker polluting the Mississippi River between New Orleans and Baton Rouge in 2008, the question of transportation safety on the waterway is critical to area residents.

The Army Corps of Engineers estimates that commercial traffic on the Mississippi accounts for roughly 500 million tons of cargo, and the American Association of Port Authorities listed the Port of South Louisiana as the nation’s top port in 2008 based on the total cargo passing through it.

Sean Duffy, the Big River Coalition Administrator, called the silt build up “speed bumps” that the ship pilots have to navigate. He told The Louisiana Weekly that the situation “…will continue the rest of this year, unless we get supplemental funding, unless we get harbormaster trust fund opened.”

According to Duffy, a tax is levied on all imported cargo going through deep draft ports in the U.S. These funds are channeled into the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund. The issue, Duffy says, is that only half of these funds are given back for harbor maintenance. The other half is steered into the general treasury where “it’s gone into war efforts, bail outs…We can’t really track it because it went into the check book and checks were written.”

“One of our key points,” Duffy explained, “has been that we have a President who’s saying that he wants to double trade, but we can’t double trade if we don’t maintain our key infrastructure, and the Mississippi River is one of the top, if not the top waterway….in the country.”

Reports from earlier this year state that the Bar Pilots for the Port of New Orleans proposed a 44-foot draft restriction in the river. Ordinarily, the Corps dredges most parts of the river to 45 feet. In February, the City Council also proposed a resolution aimed at maintaining the 45-foot level. Council Member Arnie Fielkow estimated that: “in order to reduce a ship’s draft by one foot, exporters will need to reduce cargo worth between $250,000 and $800,000 per ship.”

Congress Member Cedric Richmond issued a statement on Wednesday about the grounded tanker. In it, he said: “unfortunately, now parts of the River are too shallow for cargo ships to travel. As a result, the amount of ships’ cargo is restricted. It’s like reducing an interstate to a single lane and imposing size restrictions on vehicles because the roads were not maintained. If the River closes entirely then the United States will lose $295 million a day. In the middle of economic downturn we must do all we can to increase American exports and support American businesses and jobs—including maintaining our most important trade route.”

The same statement asserted that $13.4 billion in agricultural products were moved along the Mississippi River in 2009, including two-thirds of the grain coming from the Midwest.

Asked what could be done to address the situation, Duffy told The Louisiana Weekly that there are two bills before Congress, HR 104 and S 412, called Realizing America’s Maritime Promise (RAMP). They were respectively introduced by Congress Member Doustany (R, LA) and Senator Levin (D, MI), that would direct the funds raised through the import tax towards the “intended purpose” of maintaining the nation’s harbors.

This article originally published in the June 20, 2011 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.