THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, February 3, 1996 TAG: 9602030340
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY SCOTT HARPER, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Short : 38 lines
A trapped barge carrying 630,000 gallons of diesel fuel was freed Friday morning from hard sand near Tangier Island after an all-night scramble in icy conditions, the Coast Guard reported.
Only about 10 gallons spilled into the Chesapeake Bay, all of which quickly dissipated, and the 235-foot barge was headed to Norfolk for repairs by Friday afternoon, said Lt. Kirsten Rhinehart, a Coast Guard spokeswoman.
No one was injured.
Tug Barge 563 ran aground about 2:30 p.m. Thursday about four miles east of Tangier Island, Rhinehart said.
After a Coast Guard cutter, a helicopter and a pollution-response team were dispatched, emergency crews began pumping out two of 10 storage tanks aboard the barge.
The recovered fuel was emptied into a second vessel that had been moved alongside the trapped barge.
The pumping stopped more diesel fuel from spilling into the Bay and lightened the barge enough to let it slide off a shallow patch of hard sand about 10:10 a.m., Rhinehart said.
Owned by Eastern Marine Equipment Inc., the barge was headed for Delaware from Mobil Oil Corp. in Chesapeake, she said.
The vessel holding the recovered fuel will be allowed to continue up the Bay and make at least a partial delivery to Peninsula Oil Co. in Delaware, Rhinehart said.
A Coast Guard investigator was at the scene Friday trying to determine what went wrong and how the barge ran aground, she said. by CNB