A barge that delivers diesel fuel to the V.I. Water and Power Authority on St. Thomas and ran aground Monday off the San Juan Harbor port entrance in Puerto Rico remains on the rocks as salvagers devise a plan to remove it, the Coast Guard said Thursday.
No injuries or missing crew members have been reported and there currently are no signs of pollution from the 265-foot barge, the Defiant, though rough seas this week have made environmental impacts difficult to determine, according to Public Information Officer Ricardo Castrodad. The area has been experiencing hazardous marine conditions as a powerful swell affects the region.
“Weather conditions have been very bad the last couple of days, so access to the barge was very dangerous and access by the owners and salvage company has been very limited up until today,” he said, noting the vessel’s precarious position between a breakwater and a riprap revetment to the side of the harbor entrance, just below Castillo San Felipe del Morro in Old San Juan.
While officials have determined that five of the cargo tanks ruptured in the grounding, the barge was being towed into the harbor carrying only residual fuel and was estimated to have about 1,000 gallons of light diesel aboard, said Castrodad.
The Source has reached out to WAPA regarding whether the accident will have any impact on future fuel deliveries to the territory and has yet to hear back.
Castrodad said an investigation is underway to determine the cause of the accident but cautioned that will take some time.
“That’s a pretty lengthy process,” he said. The Coast Guard is looking at “what happened to cause the barge to disconnect or come off the towline and run aground, to look at what the causal factors were, hoping that we can identify what that was and then prevent other instances in the future from occurring.”
Castrodad said the Port of San Juan remains open to vessel traffic as the barge is not obstructing the harbor entrance or navigable waterway. Nonetheless, the Coast Guard has urged people to stay away from the area to allow response agencies to access and work at the site.
