A barge laden with a million gallons of gasoline remains hard aground in the Columbia River at the mouth of the Hood River after efforts to free it with an additional tugboat failed late Thursday.
Coast Guard Lt. j.g. Ryan Harry says a new plan calls for an empty fuel barge to be brought alongside in order to transfer gasoline off the grounded vessel, making it lighter so it can be freed from the river bottom. That effort is due to start at daylight Friday.
The Coast Guard and barge operator Tidewater Barge Lines of Vancouver, Wash., have inspected the double-hulled vessel and found no damage so there has been no environmental impact.
The crew from a tug transporting four barges through the Columbia reported the grounding early Thursday. The three other barges were removed by Thursday afternoon.
I use to run the Columbia River and that area is a sumbich with shifting shoals. Every time they let more water out at The Dalles dam, it pushes more sediment towards Hood River, and every time they let a whole bunch of water out at Bonneville, and not at the The Dalles, the water gets pretty shallow pretty quick.