Crews remove fuel, move tugboat to container dock at Port of Valdez in Alaska
By APWednesday, December 30, 2009
Fuel removed from damaged tugboat in Alaska
VALDEZ, Alaska — Almost all diesel fuel from the undamaged tanks of a tugboat that went aground on Bligh Reef has been removed.
Crowley Marine Services spokesman Jim Butler says the tugboat Pathfinder also was relocated Tuesday to the container dock at the Port of Valdez. This makes the tug much more accessible to naval architects to more closely examine the damage to the vessel.
Butler says crews left a limited amount of fuel on board the tub to run necessary systems, like generators and pumps.
The company and the Coast Guard continue to investigate how the 136-foot tug, which had finished surveying for ice in the sound’s shipping lanes and was headed back to Valdez, grounded on the infamous Bligh Reef Dec. 23. That’s where the Exxon Valdez went aground in 1989 in the nation’s worst oil spill.
