Mobile River closed after company overfills oil tank

MOBILE, Alabama -- Crews overfilled a massive fuel storage tank on the banks of the Mobile River Wednesday night, releasing an unknown amount of heavy fuel oil into the Mobile River, U.S. Coast Guard officials said.
Officials described the incident at Houston-based Gulf Coast Asphalt Co. as a “failure in the fuel transfer process.” The company routinely loads and unloads oil products from barges into more than a dozen large storage tanks at its facility on the Cochrane Causeway.

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While initial reports from the Coast Guard suggested 275,000 gallons of oil had been released, the actual total may have been lower.
Jimmy Lyons, director of the Alabama State Port Authority, said he had been told the spill totaled about 42,000 gallons.
Tank operations like Gulf Coast Asphalt typically have numerous tanks connected to each of the offloading pipelines that carry oil from a ship. Workers switch a series of valves to select which tank will receive oil coming in from a ship.
Upon hearing that a tank had been “overfilled,” an official at another tank farm, who did not want to be identified, suggested someone at Gulf Coast Asphalt may have accidentally sent the oil coming in from the barges to a tank that was already full. The company declined to comment and referred the newspaper to a public relations firm in New York.
“The oil is no longer spilling. We are working with the EPA, Coast Guard and all authorities to ensure that the surrounding area remains safe and is cleaned as quickly as possible,“ said Chrissie Zeph, a spokesperson with the Abernathy MacGregor Group’s New York office.
At 4 a.m. Thursday, the Coast Guard closed Mobile River from the Cochrane-Africatown USA Bridge to McDuffie Coal Terminal. Judy Adams, a spokeswoman for the Port Authority, said that two ships — the Carnival Elation and a bulk cargo vessel — were traveling up the river at the time of the spill. Both docked before the channel was closed.
Restrictions on the south end of the river were loosened later Thursday, and the cruise ship left port, Lyons said.
Two other cargo ships that had been scheduled to leave remained in port.

Lyons said the Coast Guard would survey the river at “first light” today and determine whether it can be reopened.
Earlier this year, Gulf Coast Asphalt secured an estimated $2.86 million in tax abatements for a project to add six new oil storage tanks on the east side of Cochrane Causeway across from its current Blakeley Island facility. That project would allow the company to process low-value crude into higher grades, according to company officials.
According to the company’s website, it has more than 37.8 million gallons of “diversified liquid petroleum storage on Blakeley Island.
When a storage tank such as the kind at Gulf Coast Asphalt is overfilled, oil typically flows out of a relief valve in the top of the tank and into a containment dike built around the base. The company is required to have a containment dike around each storage tank that is large enough to hold the entire contents of that tank.
A 2007 incident at Hunt Crude Oil Supply Co., just down the road from Gulf Coast Asphalt, proved that such containment systems are not foolproof. After a tank at Hunt ruptured, oil escaped into the environment because a rainwater drain valve on one of the containment dikes had been left open. That spill involved 12,000 gallons
Lyons said that he was told that debris apparently got caught in the drain valve at Gulf Coast Asphalt, preventing it from closing properly during Thursday’s spill.
Lyons said oil flowed into the Mobile River and across the company’s property. On Thursday, oil could be seen pooled near one of the entry gates at Gulf Coast Asphalt. Company officials would not allow the Press-Register on the property.
A large slick of oil could be seen covering several hundred yards of the river Thursday afternoon. Coast Guard officials said 4,000 feet of boom had been deployed. Much of the area where the spill occurred has bulkheads instead of natural shoreline, which will aid in cleanup. Teams used absorbent pads to mop oil from the river’s surface Thursday.
The cleanup will likely take several weeks, officials said.
Ditches along the Cochrane Causeway — the stretch of road between the bridge and the Causeway over Mobile Bay — were coated in a thick layer of oil. The oil flowed past absorbent boom spread across the drainage ditches. Mosquito fish and tadpoles schooled beneath patches of oil as it drifted downstream on the current.
Vacuum trucks were sucking oil from the ditches by Thursday afternoon. While The Press-Register received a report from a business owner of an oil sheen washing ashore along the Causeway Thursday, no oil was visible during a brief survey by the Press-Register of the area where the Mobile River enters the bay.
Late Thursday afternoon, Coast Guard officials said the cause of the accident was still under investigation. Officials said they could not provide a final total for the amount of oil spilled into the Mobile River.