Houston Ship Channel remains closed after tanker collision spills gasoline

A capsized barge that was involved in a collision with the tanker ship Genesis River the day before remains in the Houston Ship Channel on Saturday, May 11, 2019, in Pasadena. A capsized barge that was involved in a collision with the tanker ship Genesis River the day before remains in the Houston Ship Channel on Saturday, May 11, 2019, in Pasadena. Photo: Jon Shapley, Staff Photographer Photo: Jon Shapley, Staff Photographer Image 1 of / 8 Caption Close Houston Ship Channel remains closed after tanker collision spills gasoline 1 / 8 Back to Gallery

Much of the Houston Ship Channel remained closed Saturday a day after two vessels collided, causing a large gasoline blend spill and setting off another round of environmentalists concerns for the Gulf Coast.

The 755-foot tanker Genesis River carrying liquefied natural gas collided Friday afternoon with a tug boat pushing two barges, each carrying 25,000 barrels of product, around 3:30 p.m., the U.S. Coast Guard said. One barge capsized and the other was damaged, leaking a gasoline product called reformate.

The channel closure is the first unplanned shutdown since March, when a massive chemical storage tank fire at Intercontinental Terminals Co., in Deer Park spilled petroleum products into nearby waterways. That three-day closure cost the energy industry about $1 billion, experts estimated.

The National Weather Service warned residents as far west as Pearland they may be able to smell gasoline fumes, with the most pungent odors in Webster and La Porte. Galveston County health officials are conducting air monitoring and have yet to discover any hazardous levels of chemicals.

Jim Guidry, executive vice president of Kirby Inland Marine, owner of the barges, said at a news conference Saturday morning the tanker’s hull punctured two of the smaller vessel’s four storage tanks.

“The bow of the ship went through the port tank into the starboard tank, so there was no way to secure the source of the leak,” Guidry said. “Those two tanks were open to the sea.”

Aerial footage showed a trianglular gash in one of the barges and a sheen floating on the water. The white bow of the Genesis River bore scrape marks. The capsized barge is intact and not believed to be leaking product, Kirby Corporation spokesman Greg Beuerman said. The tug, which had four crew aboard, was undamaged.

The Coast Guard has yet to determine to the cause of the collision.

Chief Joergens Reno said crews are attempting to calculate how much product spilled into the water. The channel remains closed between Bayport and Redfish Island, halting 29 inbound and 17 outbound ships.

“Our assets are out there right now, still assessing the situation, still trying to come up with a game plan,” Reno said. “We would love to get some traffic moving.”

Crews have deployed 3,800 feet of boom around the barges to contain the spill. More than 12,000 feet of additional boom is being deployed to protect sensitive areas around the bay, the Coast Guard said. There have been no reported impacts to wildlife.

Beuerman said the barge company estimates about 9,000 barrels have spilled. He said once crews determine how to salvage the damaged barge and flip the capsized one, the Coast Guard will be able to estimate when the ship channel can reopen.

An online vessel registry lists the Genesis River as a Panama-flagged vessel built in 2018 that most recently made a port call in Houston on Friday. It was bound for Port Said, Egypt on May 29. Many shipping firms register vessels in Panama, as the Central American company has less onerous fees and regulations than other countries.

All foreign-flagged vessels are required to use a pilot to navigate the Houston Ship Channel. Houston Pilots spokesman Henry de la Garza said a pilot was aboard the Genesis River but declined to comment on the collision, citing the ongoing investigation.

Kirby Inland Marine operates about one-quarter of the 4,000 barges in the United States and has a heavy presence in the ship channel.

A Kirby-owned barge collided with another barge near the mouth of the channel in 2014, igniting a fire. Several months earlier, a tanker and bulk carrier collided overnight off Morgan’s Point, near the site of Friday’s collision. That crash forced the closure of the ship channel and dumped aroud 88,000 gallons of fuel into the waterway.

zach.despart@chron.com

www.twitter.com/zachdespart