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Mississippi River Re-Opens

By The Associated Press

Ships began crawling up the Mississippi River, two days after a massive oil spill shut it down. Mississippi River Re-Opens

Published: Sat, July 26, 2008 - 1:41 pm Last Updated: Sat, July 26, 2008 - 2:13 pm

NEW ORLEANS (AP) - Ships began crawling up the Mississippi River
at New Orleans in a tightly controlled procession Friday, two days
after a massive oil spill shut down a stretch of one of the
nation's most critical commercial arteries.
The pecking order was based on Coast Guard determination of the
economic importance of the ships' cargo, and the pace was slow -
with a stop at the end to scrub oil from each hull.
A ship carrying refinery-bound oil was the first to get the
go-ahead.
With more than 200 ships to be cleared, it was expected to take
days to clear the backlog that developed after the tanker Tintomara
collided with a barge in the early morning hours Wednesday. About
419,000 gallons of fuel oil spilled from the barge into the
Mississippi at New Orleans.
The spill was the largest in the Mississippi River since a
tanker ran aground in 2000 about 40 miles south of New Orleans,
dumping more than half a million gallons of crude oil. That spill
closed about 26 miles of the river.