After cleaning up several thousand gallons of light crude oil spilled from a damaged vessel, the U.S. Coast Guard reopened a section of the Mississippi River to towboat traffic on Saturday.

“The Coast Guard is no longer actively managing the flow of towboat traffic and we are minimizing the safety zone to a one-mile distance to ensure the safety of response crews still working on the MOC-12 barge,” said Capt. William Drelling, Federal On Scene Commander for the Vicksburg oil spill.

The damaged tanker had been transporting a reported 80,000 gallons of light crude oil when it allided with the Vicksburg Rail bridge, breeching the hull of one of the two barges. An estimated 7,000 gallons of crude spilled into the river and the cleanup had a 16 mile stretch of the Mississippi closed to traffic for six days following the January 27th 1:30am allision. No injuries were reported and the damaged barge is being transported to a marine repair facility nearby.

Photo credit: Ron,Ron,Ron / Foter.com / CC BY-NC-SA

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