| Small barge sinks at Melvin Price Locks and Dam |
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| Friday, 19 December 2008 08:19 | |||
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December 18, 2008 - 9:35 AM
By LINDA WELLER ALTON - Divers from Minnesota were to plunge into the Mississippi River's frigid waters Thursday to determine why a small barge sank below the Melvin Price Locks and Dam 26. Crews at the dam noticed at 8:45 a.m. Wednesday that the cutter-head dredge barge, which is a support vessel for the Dredge Dubuque, had sunk. It was moored inside the land-side guide wall area, near the Illinois shore, and downstream of the locks and dam. Three work pontoons also had broken loose, but dam personnel recovered them. They also retrieved four barrels floating in the water. George Stringham, a spokesman for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' St. Louis District, said a maximum of 40 gallons of waste oil escaped from the barge. A dam crew, though, contained and removed the sheen on the water by surrounding the 1,500-square-foot area with floating, absorbent booms. "Our folks took a quick, proper response in getting the booms out when they saw the sheen," Stringham said. "They contacted the U.S. Coast Guard, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency." "There is no anticipated environmental damage from the incident," a corps news release said. No one was on board the vessel, the pontoon boats or Dubuque at the time the cutter dredge sank, or when the pontoons broke loose. The Dubuque is based in the Corps of Engineers' St. Paul (Minn.) District, and it was wintering inside the land-side guide wall downstream of Mel Price. It just had arrived in Alton on Monday. Officials with the St. Louis District sent the Sewell, its floating crane, to Alton on Thursday to support the recovery effort. Stringham said the crew likely would not pull the dredge vessel up out of the water until Friday at the earliest, after divers inspect the damage. Stringham said the corps uses two types of dredge vessels. The 20-foot-by-60-foot cutter-head that sunk in Alton is used to remove heavier materials, such as gravel and clay, from river bottoms, he said. Another type, the "dust pan," is named for its front scoop, and it has jets at the rear. That type of barge is used to remove lighter-weight sand and silt, Stringham said. This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
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