Galveston County News

Federal Pilots to appeal. Local spat has regional and national implications. The Galveston-Texas City Pilots and the five-member Board of Pilot Commissioners for Galveston County are facing a serious legal challenge from five pilot applicants and their local attorney. In a nutshell, local, federally licensed and similarly qualified pilots want to compete for business in a previously closed space. In Texas, like virtually every other U.S. state, a local group of pilots – so-called ‘state pilots’ are given the privilege of providing all marine pilot services for deep draft registered (foreign) traffic. In essence, it amounts to a legal monopoly.

Three offshore oil workers filed a lawsuit against units of Royal Dutch Shell and Enbridge, seeking $1 million in damages for injuries they allegedly received during a Nov. 8 fire on a U.S. Gulf of Mexico production platform. The suit, filed in Galveston County court in Texas on Dec. 5, claims safety lapses on Shell's Enchilada platform caused severe injuries to the three. The complaint seeks more than $1 million in damages from Shell International Exploration and Production, Shell Offshore…

Gulf of Mexico fishermen are threatened by a daily wave of foreign illegal fishing vessels and the U.S. fishing industry is calling on Congress to take action, Florida business owners said April 8 at an event hosted by the Gulf Coast Leadership Conference. Mexican fishing boats enter U.S. sovereign waters and illegally poach hundreds to thousands of fish at a time. Although the U.S. Coast Guard and Gulf state maritime law enforcement agencies have taken aggressive action to find and destroy these illegal Mexican vessels, the frequency of such incursions continues to escalate.

On Tuesday, December 9, 2014 at 4 p.m., the Port of Galveston along with Moody National Bank, Texas First Bank, Hometown Bank and Webber L.L.C. will celebrate the expansion of Cruise terminal 2. The ceremony will take place at the Port of Galveston in front of cruise terminal 2 located on Harborside Drive. The three Galveston County community banks have worked together on financing for a $13 million expansion of the Port of Galveston’s Cruise Terminal No. 2. Each bank pitched in for the unique funding package for the expansion of Cruise Terminal No. 2 to accommodate larger vessels and more passengers. When completed next spring, Cruise Terminal No. 2 will feature 150,000 square feet of space and have a seating capacity of over 2,000 passengers.

Coast Guard and National Transportation Safety Board investigators have closed a formal hearing in Galveston, that was held to gather facts that led to a March 22, 2014 collision and subsequent 168,000 gallon oil spill near the Texas City Dike. The purpose of the Coast Guard marine casualty investigation and formal board hearing is to examine the causes of a marine casualty, make recommendations to help avoid a similar incident, improve overall maritime transportation safety, and promote safety of life and property at sea. Investigators heard from the captains of both the tug Miss Susan and the bulk carrier Summer Wind,  the two vessels that collided…

The US Coast Guard informs that in conjunction with the National Transportation Safety Board, it will begin a formal hearing at the Galveston County Criminal Justice Center Monday, June 2, 2014 at 1 p.m. On March 22, 2014, the Summer Wind was en route to the Port of Houston when it collided with a barge owned by Kirby Inland Marine, which was being towed by the tugboat Miss Susan and was headed from the Port of Texas City to the Intracoastal Waterway along the Bolivar Peninsula. The vessels collided near the tip of the Texas City Dike, in an area known as the Texas City Y, resulting in the spillage from the barge of 168,000 gallons of fuel oil into the water.

The U.S. Coast Guard is ramping up efforts to clean oil in the Ports of Texas City and Galveston Wednesday, as expected afternoon weather will likely hinder or cease operations due to safety concerns for responders. Storms may keep responders from being able to safely collect oil on the water and along the shoreline. Response efforts will focus heavily on cleaning Pelican Island and north to the Texas City Dike until weather makes operations too hazardous for responders. The weather is also expected to flush out pockets of oil that were unreachable to responders over the past few days. Once weather abates, responders will be re-assessing the area to update cleanup plans for immediate action.

The Coast Guard informs that response efforts by the Unified Command to contain oil leaking from the partially submerged Kirby Marine tank barge continue Saturday overnight. Four skimming vessels remain on-scene to continue recovering spilled bunker fuel oil. Officials with the unified command, who are overseeing the spill containment and recovery efforts, anticipate the ability to fully reactivate their efforts beginning at first light Sunday. An additional 20 response vessels are staged and are prepared to resume operations early on Sunday.

Attorneys with the Houston trial law firm Arnold & Itkin LLP filed a wrongful death lawsuit on behalf of the family of Aaron Dale Burkeen, one of 11 men still missing after the recent oil rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico. A resident of Philadelphia, Miss., Burkeen worked as a crane operator on the Deepwater Horizon, a massive oil rig owned by Swiss-based Transocean Ltd. (NYSE:RIG) and operated by UK-based BP PLC (NYSE:BP) . On April 20, Burkeen was operating the crane on deck before the first explosion rocked the rig. His responsibilities included getting other crew members to safety. He is believed to have been tragically killed in the second blast.

An 8,000-pound tugboat engine crashed to the pavement yesterday when a truck flipped shortly after 10 a.m., according to a report on the Galveston County Daily News. The paper quoted Charlie Russell, of Marine Systems, as saying that the engine was a 2,000-hp Detroit Diesel engine, being hauled to Galveston for an overhaul, he said. The engine reportedly landed in the road and slid a few yards before coming to rest in the south median of the two-lane highway.

The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency within the Department of Homeland Security concluded a four-day joint law enforcement offshore marine operation with U.S. Coast Guard and NOAA officers and equipment Thursday, September 11, 2003. ICE air and marine enforcement personnel and equipment were also utilized. The four-day twenty-four hour operation focused on targeting commercial fishing vessels. Targeted vessels were boarded by officers for the purpose of detecting violation(s) of laws enforced by the federal agencies. The Galveston County Sheriff’s Office enforced violations of state and local laws. U.S. Coast Guard officers aboard the USCS cutter Heron and ICE special agents boarded the fishing vessel Christian G located about 52 miles southeast of Freeport…

Port of Houston Authority Chairman James T. Edmonds has declined a suggestion by Galveston Bay Conservation and Preservation Association Chairman James Blackburn that the Port adopt one of two alternative sites in place of the Port's proposed Bayport location for a new Houston area container terminal. "Bayport is the right location for the Port's proposed container and cruise terminal, environmentally, financially and socially," Edmonds told Blackburn. In a meeting on Thursday, Blackburn proposed that Spilman Island and Texas City would be better locations for the new container facility. Edmonds described both alternatives as impractical.

The Bolivar/Galveston, Texas, ferry re-opened at 2:50 p.m. after being closed for seven hours today. Sheening was seen on the water near the Bolivar ferry terminal after approximately 42,000 gallons of alkylate, a gasoline blend component, was spilled into the Houston Ship Channel near Galveston from a collision between two tugs and barges this morning. The Intracostal Waterway is open to one-way traffic. The alkylate, which dissipates very rapidly, came from the #2 and #3 tanks on the port side of the barge MMI 605 being pushed by the Rita M. The barge can carry as much as 1.25 million gallons of the product; approximately 225,311 gallons were in the two damaged tanks. "Little if any environmental impact has occurred at this time," said Richard Arnhart, Texas General Land Office.

Attorneys in a dispute between the Port of Galveston and a Louisiana offshore industry company will meet Feb. 22 to set the stage for trial. In February 2005, the port filed a $91 million breach of contract lawsuit against Edison Chouest. The port claimed Edison Chouest reneged on a proposal signed in 2000 to construct an offshore energy industry service terminal on Pelican Island. Edison Chouest, which did not begin work on the proposed CPort Galveston terminal, asked the Galveston Wharves Board of Trustees, which oversees the port, in 2004 to get out of its agreement. The trial is set for July 10 before Judge David Garner in the 10th State District Court. At the Feb. 22 jurisdictional hearing, attorneys will present arguments, and Garner will rule on a key technical issue.

According to a published report in the Galveston County Daily News, federal officials have abandoned plans to house more than 4,000 Hurricane Katrina survivors on luxury liners in Galveston, based on the fact that no one displaced by Hurricane Katrina seemed interested to move aboard. The decision ended a chaotic week for city officials, who for four days raced to sort out the logistics of providing transportation, water and school buses to cruise ships that would essentially house small cities on public docks. The federal government’s reportedly paid Carnival Corp. $192 million to provide the temporary housing. The Federal Emergency Management Agency last week also agreed to pay Carnival $44 million for fuel reimbursements related to the shelters for an agreement worth $236 million…

The Coast Guard ended two searches today in the Gulf of Mexico off the Texas and Louisiana coasts after thorough searches turned up no results. In the first case, the Coast Guard called off the search for a missing swimmer in San Luis Pass near Freeport, Texas. The 17-year-old Hispanic male is missing after swimming in San Luis Pass Tuesday evening. The Galveston Police Department notified the Coast Guard of the missing swimmer about 8:40 p.m. Tuesday. The Coast Guard conducted many searches with a 47-foot rescue boat, from Coast Guard Station Galveston, Texas, and an HH-65 Dolphin helicopter from Coast Guard Air Station Houston. A boat and personal watercraft from the Galveston Beach Patrol and a boat from the Galveston County Sheriff's Marine Division also assisted with the search.