Page 8: of Marine News Magazine (October 2015)

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BY THE NUMBERS

Towing Industry Safety –

AWO & USCG Outline the Facts, by the numbers …

In August, at a meeting co-chaired by the U.S. Coast oil was spilled as a result of 85 tank barge pollution in-

Guard’s RDML Paul Thomas, Assistant Commandant cidents in 2014. The largest oil spill of 168,000 gallons for Prevention Policy, and Tom Allegretti, American Wa- (84% of the volume spilled) was the result of a collision terways Operators (AWO) President & CEO, the effort between a freighter and a tank barge being pushed in the to reduce crew fatalities and oil spills and to prepare the vicinity of Texas City, TX. Absent this event, there would industry for the looming Subchapter M towboat rules, have been only 32,367 gallons of oil spilled, similar to the USCG and AWO issued a Safety Report through 2012. The second largest spill of 30,240 gallons (15% their National Quality Steering Committee (NQSC). of the total volume spilled) was the result of a collision

The report provides key metrics on Towing Industry between 20 dry cargo barges and two tank barges being

Safety Statistics. For the past 15 years, the NQSC has pushed on the Lower Mississippi River. These two spills used three measures to track overall trends in safety and accounted for 99% of the total volume of oil spilled from environmental protection. Speci