Dike, ports closed after barge collides with ship

They haven't closed the causeway?
It's as close to this marine fender bender as Dike Park or Levee.

That fog is pretty thick over the water today....

Gary, they closures are for access to the area to clean up the spill not because they are worried of people being harmed by the leak....

I'm not feeling good, what's Buzbee's number?

Outgoing tide later tonight will carry the spill out the channel through the jetties. Then north winds on Sunday.

Pretty sickening petrochemical smell here in San Leon. Must really be bad...

Leaking barge has about 1 million gallons onboard... TJ-- I would be concerned about someone getting harmed. The smell here in San Leon (and I am inland) is what I smelled only a few times during my years at BP refinery.........

The ship that caused the spill "left the area". Wow, this will make headlines around the country by Monday.

I thought I saw a report last night that the barge sank, but I'm glad it didn't. Where's Buzbee?

Just try to sue.This ain't BP, you will not get a dime. Plus most companies only look at the bottom line and will not try to make it right like BP.

The Buzzbee comments are not appropriate at this time. Should be focused on the harm it is doing to the bay.

They ALL look at the bottom line regardless of the commercials or what they tell you. Folks like Buzbee force folks like BP to make it right.

FYI: Princess leaves from the Bayport Terminal in Houston; not Galveston.

Lawyers also make a big profit off getting payouts to clients who've suffered no harm (from BP).
BP never hesitated that I know of from local incidents to pay the truly harmed. They even paid when harm was done to people who caused their OWN injuries or deaths.
Of course, several thousand opportunistic liars around here also benefitted from legalized extortion lawsuits like most of those post-Isom, and the later non-event 'harmfull smell', etc.
About 45 thousand did not benefit from another hyped up non-issue. Yet...
There is a difference in perception vs reality between what one knows from seeing with his own eyes, vs hearing second and third hand information.

Thanks for making the conversion from gallons to the Industry Standard measurement of barrels, TJ. I noticed this was done in a Houston TV news report last night too. That is a sign of improvement by all media doing so (related to a previous dialog we had).

Just for clarity, the terms "bunkers" and crude are mutually exclusive. By definition all forms of the generic term "bunkers" are refined product, not crude oil. Bunkers is a term referring to any of a (nowadays) wide range of products of vary degrees of heaviness (viscosity). It actually refers to coal, back when that is the fuel ships burned. Even light diesel such as Marine Gas Oil can be colloquially referred to as "bunkers" if they are going to be used as fuel in a vessel.

If they are emphasizing the "heaviness" of this bunker product in information being released, it is likely to be 180 CST but, may be the very heavy 380 CST (AKA Bunker C). If you ask if the product had been heated prior to loading the barge, that would get you some good information. If yes, then with each passing hour, that oil is cooling and will become very difficult to pump off from the remaining, so far undamaged, tanks.

Has the Captain of the Port (COTP) federalized the spill yet? At present, the owners of the leaking barge are, by definition the responsible party and must take the lead in all recovery actions unless the spill is federalized and a FOSC (usually the COTP) takes command. Someone higher than the COTP will take over as FOSC if the spill becomes serious enough to offer career-enhancing media coverage. Look for the District Commander from New Orleans to then take over. If the Commandant from Washington shows up announcing he is now the FOSC, you can tell you have a world class media event on your hands.

For benefit of Scrabble Guy below: the other vessel involved in the allusion did not leave the area, she is standing by, at anchor in the Boliver Roads. Ships, unlike cars, cannot simply pull over to the side of the road after an allusion. They must seek and transit to safe anchorage or wharfage to prevent a further casualty from developing.

Oil Spill Eater II is a first response bioremediation product that is safe for responders, non toxic to marine species, that actually removes spills from the environment by converting them to CO2 and water. OSE II has cleaned up over 27000 spills since 1989 and recently in Nigeria cleaned up a 150000 gallon spills where the water column was protected and the over 52000 acres of shorelines about half with sensitive mangroves was cleaned up so that in less than 30 days you could not tell there had ever been a spill. OSE II is the safe proven means to clean up a spill. OSEI has contacted the Coast Guard in Morgan city to let them know there is enough OSE II on our Dallas warehouse to clean up a 2,000,000 gallon spill and it can be hot shotted to Galveston immediately.