Bouchard Xport fine!

[UserRemoved1]

Just heard on the radio that Bouchard Transportation is going to get a record fine of 10 million $ for the barge grounding last spring.

SHOULD have been 100 million.

Hope it smartens em up but probably not. Bet it happens again. Only worse

[redlite]

Yeah, and they'll appeal it and probably get it reduced.

[beamie]

My point of view.

Being a Chief Engineer in the Merchant Marine, and no I don't work for Bouchard, I think you have to cut them a bit of slack with your opinions of fines.

This incident was only I believe the 3rd or 4th documented for BT in the last 18 years or something along those lines. And those other incidents were extremely minor. That is a pretty impressive record.

This was a pure accident, human error which happens, I didn't hear of any illegal drug use found etc.

BT runs a neccesary service. This trip it hapened to be #6 heavy oil for power plant use. A plant which provides ALL of us electricity.

Bouchard plays by the regs. So don't get mad at them because the barge wasn't doublehulled. It is still legal to operate this type of barge. Unless of course you want to take up a collection and build them a newer fleet. Or double you electric bill.

The only troubling fact I had was the initial estimates of fuel lost. But these were estimates and trust me, when you have unkown hull damage, color cutting sounding tapes with water finding paste to find water ingress/oil loss...is all estimates for it is constantly changing.

And one last note. The use of double bottoms and doubles hulls does not completely solve this problem. After 2006 or when ever the OPA '90 regs takes effect...it is when tankers must be double hulled. This does not prevent lets say a container ship burning heavy oil from storing thier heavy bunker oil in thier double bottom tanks. So....if this ship grounds, the heavy oil goes into the water, go figure.

Beamie

[scoobe]

Another point... don't forget they already had to foot the bill for the cleanup process which was like 40 million or something, I think.

[nor-easter]

I hear you, Chief, but who ever was on the wheel was WAY OFF OF WHERE THEY SHOULD HAVE BEEN.

My biggest bitch about this was that the incident occurred down off Westport and the freaking Coast Guard allowed them, actually directed them, to bring the leaking barge all the way up to the anchorage area North of Woods Hole.
That leaking vessel should have been directed to get out of Buzzards Bay and get out beyond Coxes Ledge so the oil would go out to sea!

If they had a crewed barge they could have ascertained which tank was ruptured and place a negative vacumn on that tank and it would have eliminated any further leak.

The Tanker Companies do a great service in transportation of these needed commodities but the Government holds a great responsibility for the screwy manning requirements and idiot watch standers that would bring a leaking petroleum laden vessel into the Bay instead of telling them to get out into the Ocean.

[scoobe]

The company is off the hook but they can still prosecute the mate.

[Carl]

I'm sure that the mate will be prosecuted as well. And I'm sure his credentials will be brought into question.

Acording to The Day

A month before the oil spill in Buzzards Bay, the same mate caused a barge to collide with a dock in Philadelphia, according to the criminal charge. No oil was spilled, but the dock was damaged. The captain of the barge said the accident occurred because the mate approached the dock at a fast rate of speed and then made “corrections” that caused the barge to hit the dock.

The captain of the Evening Tide also called Bouchard headquarters to complain about the mate, but he remained assigned to the tugboat


If all this is in fact true, he is screwed.

With respect to directing the barge out to sea, there are issues with not allowing a damaged vessel into a port of refuge to minimize damage and potential loss of life.

Now we don't know what information the Coast Guard had about the vessel when they directed it to safe harbor. We also don't know how they obtained that information. Was is first hand or was it from the ship itself.

There has been many a convention by the International Maritime Organization about just this issue. Here is a brief excerpt.


New guidelines on places of refuge for ships in need of assistance were adopted. These guidelines are intended for use when a ship is in need of assistance but the safety of life is not involved. Where the safety of life is involved, the provisions of the SAR Convention should continue to be followed. The guidelines recognize that, when a ship has suffered an incident, the best way of preventing damage or pollution from its progressive deterioration is to transfer its cargo and bunkers, and to repair the casualty. Such an operation is best carried out in a place of refuge. However, to bring such a ship into a place of refuge near a coast may endanger the coastal State, both economically and from the environmental point of view, and local authorities and populations may strongly object to the operation. Therefore, granting access to a place of refuge could involve a political decision that can only be taken on a case-by-case basis. In so doing, consideration would need to be given to balancing the interests of the affected ship with those of the environment. A second resolution, Maritime Assistance Service (MAS), recommends that all coastal States should establish a maritime assistance service (MAS).

The principal purposes would be to receive the various reports, consultations and notifications required in a number of IMO instruments; monitoring a ship's situation if such a report indicates that an incident may give rise to a situation whereby the ship may be in need of assistance; serving as the point of contact if the ship's situation is not a distress situation but nevertheless requires exchanges of information between the ship and the coastal State, and for serving as the point of contact between those involved in a marine salvage operation undertaken by private facilities if the coastal State considers that it should monitor all phases of the operation.

Much of this came from a tanker off the Spanish coast last year that was denied refuge and sunk which created an even larger disaster. Most of this was probably transparent to this country since it was not in our back yard.


Much like beamie, I am a licensed engineer. I don't work for Bouchard (actually I am not even sailing on my license) but these issues are near and dear to me. Not just from a professional perspective, but also as a sportsman

[nor-easter]

Most of my info is first hand, off Ch 13 16 and 22. The Mate left the wheel house and another vessel tried to contact the Evening Tide and finally the goofball came up on 13 and it was too late.
The other vessel called the tide and told him he must have had a touch as he was laying a slick behind him. The CG sent a helo and a jet and a couple small boats and all confirmed a shine showing. The CG directed the Tide to the Anchorage Area North of Woods Hole. All this went on in the morning and after the tug/barge combo was anchored the CG got going to the MIO/Providence to get a team to inspect the casualty.
The barge/tug was boomed and the fiasco went on from there.

If the CG had directed him to get out of the Bay he could have done so without that much problem to the bay. The wind was Easterley, blowing out of the bay and the current was Westerly as well. The incident occurred off Westport and had he gone out the channel and thence offshore the natural currents would have tended to carry any waste offshore.
He then could have put a crew aboard the barge by helo and got a negative vacumn on the tank and then brought the barge back up into the bay for offloading and all that without screwing the Bay up.

[UserRemoved1]

Co. To Pay $6M For Buzzards Bay Oil Claims - Project Economy News Story - WCVB Boston