NEW ORLEANS — The Coast Guard has stopped 59 ships from traversing a closed stretch of the Mississippi River from New Orleans to the Gulf of Mexico on Thursday while hundreds of workers tackled the difficult task of cleaning up about 400,000 gallons of heavy oil that spilled when a barge and tanker collided.
Besides those stopped along the major waterway, 33 more vessels were hung up in canals that enter the river at New Orleans, the Coast Guard said.
A sheen of oil coated the water from New Orleans almost to the gulf, about 97 miles away, Petty Officer Jaclyn Young said. About 50,000 feet of containment boom had been placed on the river, and workers planned to put down another 30,000 feet and use vacuum skimmers to pick up the oil.
It could take days to open the river and weeks to clean the spill, Young said.
Meanwhile, authorities were investigating why the tugboat towing the barge in Wednesday morning’s crash did not have a properly licensed pilot, the Coast Guard said.
The person operating the boat had an apprentice mate’s license, but no one on the vessel was properly documented to guide it, said Lt. Cmdr. Cheri Ben-Iesau from the Coast Guard in New Orleans.
The barge held more than 419,000 gallons of heavy fuel oil in three tanks.
