A grounded barge sent a 15-mile-long sheen of oil drifting down the Columbia River early Thursday, just three days after the U.S. Coast Guard assumed the hazard had been removed.
The vessel’s owner had been ordered to remove onboard oil and garbage after the vessel broke its mooring and went aground Jan. 20.
The condition of the 431-foot-long barge Davy Crockett, beached and broken on the north bank of the river between Vancouver and Camas, has deteriorated since the converted Liberty ship went aground a week ago. The stern and the bow now form a ‘V’ sticking out of the water with much of the midsection of the ship swamped by river water.
State and federal authorities were trying to assess the threat as dusk fell on Thursday.
“We’re trying to figure out how much oil is on it,” said Curt Piesch, a spill response specialist for the state Department of Ecology. “There could be a lot of oil on it.”
He said about 2,800 feet of floating oil-absorbent boom line had been deployed around the ship.
Piesch said a sheen was reported by an employee of Tidewater Barge Co. Thursday morning near the Port of Vancouver. He said a state spill-response boat traced the source 15 miles upriver to the Davy Crockett.
“We’ve had ship spills on the river before,” Piesch said. “The difference is this is so far upriver. The good thing on this one is it’s not a heavy intermediate fuel oil; it’s a lubrication oil. But oil’s still oil, and we’re going to aggressively respond to it.”
A representative of the salvage company working for the vessel’s owner said Thursday’s leak was discovered about 10:30 a.m. by an employee who had been checking the barge every 12 hours.
A week ago today, the Coast Guard had ordered vessel owner Brett Simpson of Ellensburg to remove oil, old batteries and other detritus aboard the ship. On Monday, the Coast Guard reported that the task had been completed “and the vessel no longer poses a pollution risk to the public health or welfare or to the environment.”
Just one problem: It wasn’t true.
“We suspect that there’s some kind of compartment under the water that just wasn’t discovered during the first assessment,” Coast Guard Petty Officer Kelly Parker said.
Simpson, the vessel’s owner, did not respond to requests for comment.
Parker said the owner has been working cooperatively with the Coast Guard.
“Right now, the owner plans on scrapping the vessel — basically taking it apart piece by piece,” Parker said. “We don’t have a timeline.”
Eric Muller, of Ballard Diving & Salvage, has been working with Simpson to address the ongoing hazard.
“The ship appears to have essentially broken in two sections completely now,” Muller said. “That has likely exposed some issues deeper into the ship.”
Maritime records indicate the ship was launched in 1942 in Houston. It was the same type of Liberty ship produced by the hundreds in Vancouver during World War II. It was converted to an offshore pipelaying barge in 1969, then converted to a flat barge with the removal of its superstructure in 1999 in Seattle.
It has been moored along the north bank of the river in Vancouver since 2002, although its purpose in Vancouver remains hazy.
“The owner has indicated that he is going to remove it,” said Jane Chavey, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Natural Resources, which owns the aquatic land on which the Davy Crockett now sits. “The main issue is that it be removed in an environmentally responsible way.”
Staff writer Tom Vogt contributed to this report.
Erik Robinson: 360-735-4551, or erik.robinson@columbian.com.
