Post by yachtsmanwilly on Nov 11, 2013 6:23:30 GMT -5
For those who facefuck...
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Last trip ending today for St. Marys Challenger
11/11 - St. Marys Challenger is expected to arrive under her own steam sometime today at Bay Shipbuilding Co. at Sturgeon Bay, Wis., to be converted to a barge. She made her final run up Lake Michigan Sunday.
Fittingly, her final passage from the Calumet River as a self-powered vessel was delayed by a malfunctioning bridge. When the vessel was known as Medusa Challenger, Chicago auto traffic was often delayed as she passed through malfunctioning bridges. At 5 p.m. Sunday, the St. Marys Challenger was approaching Lake Michigan after a delay waiting for the Nickel Plate Bridge near Torrence Avenue to open. The bridge was stuck in the down position.
The Challenger departed her unloading dock on the Calumet River at noon CST Sunday. The historic steamer made one stop in the Calumet at 106th Street to drop off cargo gear before proceeding out of the river on its voyage to Sturgeon Bay. The St. Marys Challenger arrived at the South Chicago Terminal in Lake Calumet shortly before midnight Friday.
From YESTERDAY:
St. Marys Challenger on final run before barge conversion
11/10 - 5 p.m. update - At 5 p.m. the St. Marys Challenger was approaching Lake Michigan after a delay waiting for the Nickel Plate Bridge near Torrence Avenue to open. The bridge was stuck in the down position.
9:30 a.m. update - The Challenger is expected to depart a Noon CST today. The historic steamer will make one stop in the Calumet at 106th Street to drop off cargo gear, before proceeding out of the Calumet River on its voyage to Sturgeon Bay, Wis.
Original Report- Chicago, Ill. - After weeks of speculation, the oldest freighter on the Great Lakes and one with a special place in Chicago history is unloading its last load of cement, before steaming to Sturgeon Bay, Wis., to be transformed into a barge.
The St. Marys Challenger, arrived at the South Chicago Terminal in Lake Calumet shortly before midnight Friday.
A number of the ships fans and she has many lined bridges along the Calumet River to get late-night photos of the 551-foot-long freighter close-up. The enthusiasts came from as far away as Massachusetts and New York.
Were talking about a ship that was built before the Titanic, said Richard Jenkins, of Lawrence, Mass., who chased the Challenger from Chicago to Michigan and back.
He said the Challenger is the last active U.S. flag freighter built before World War II, and at 107 years, one of the oldest operating ships in the world, which he credited to the fact that for most of her career, she worked on the Great Lakes and not in salt water.
The powdered cement delivery, which continued until late Saturday afternoon, marked the conclusion of a second career for the freighter, one which began when she was rebuilt for the cement-hauling trade in 1967-68.
She earned a spot in Chicago infamy between 1968 and 1979, when she unloaded regularly at the old Penn Dixie pier on Goose Island. Routinely, bridges that opened as wide as possible to allow her through would become stuck in the up position in her wake.
The Challenger remains the longest ship ever to traverse the Chicago River.
One sailor who worked aboard the Challenger for five years in the 1970s said he was hard-pressed to remember any trip in which at least one bridge leaf did not become stuck.
Beginning in 1979 and continuing until Saturday, the ships southern port of call was Lake Calumet, although she also made regular stops in Milwaukee and several other Wisconsin ports, depending on the transportation needs of her owner.
Those who spoke with the crew said the mood on board has become increasingly somber in the past few weeks, as speculation grew about the future of the ship, which is due for a mandatory five-year federal inspection.
Although the Challenger's owner said it was trying to decide between re-engining the ship, the last oil-burning steamship on the Great Lakes, with a new diesel engine and transforming it into a barge, others said the decision was made some time ago and already has a tug waiting in Muskegon, Mich., to begin its pushing chores.
The Chicago History Museum is among those hoping to obtain a piece of the ship as it is transformed. Some ship enthusiasts said they understand the dollars-and-cents decision that had to be made, but Jenkins said they should leave the ship as she is.
The Challenger’s departure was delayed Saturday due to weather. It looks like there may be a window early Sunday afternoon, please check back for updates.
CBS
Lawsuit filed over KCBX petcoke piles along Calumet River
11/11 - Chicago, Ill. – Along the banks of Chicago’s Calumet River, growing piles of black dust up to five stories high a byproduct of oil refining called petcoke have sparked two lawsuits that allege the towering mounds pose grave threats to the environment and people of the city’s Southeast side.
The granular, coal-like material -- a carbon-rich residue from crude oil refining called petroleum coke, but often referred to as petcoke -- is used as an industrial fuel and has long been stored in open lots in Midwestern cities.
There is little U.S. market for petcoke because it burns dirty, producing more emissions than coal. But as refineries across the country have begun processing more heavy, carbon-rich crude oil from Canada’s oil sands fields, they have likewise been producing more petcoke. And though American entrepreneurs, led by the Koch brothers, have discovered a booming market for petcoke in China, the piles have grown larger.
Now residents of Chicago fear a repeat of what happened this summer in Detroit, when a high wind caught a mountain of petcoke on the lakefront and created a swirling tornado-shaped black cloud that stretched to the sky and blew into Ontario. The cloud made the national news in Canada.
The mountain that unleashed the cloud was owned by Koch Carbon, a subsidiary of Koch Industries. The resulting outcry reportedly led the company to relocate the pile to Ohio.
The mountains in Chicago are owned by a different Koch Industries subsidiary, KCBX, which now faces lawsuits from the Illinois attorney general, who is alleging violations of the states Environmental Protection Act, and neighbors of the petcoke piles. The residents of the South Deering and East Side neighborhoods are seeking damages in a class-action lawsuit for alleged harm to property and health. Both lawsuits also seek force the companies involved in storage and moving the petcoke to put in measures to control the dust that residents say has become a constant nuisance.
There will be a growing amount of petcoke that is coming to these areas, said Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan. To the extent that there is already a problem, there is grave concern that there will be a much larger problem very soon.
The AGs suit, filed this week, alleges that the company failed to control dust on its storage site, which it said at times held as much as 350,000 tons of petcoke in piles up to 60 feet high. When the dust blows into the nearby neighborhoods, including two schools and a park within a mile, it gets into peoples eyes, is inhaled and coats peoples homes...threatening human health, the complaint states. Inhaling petcoke dust could potentially cause serious health problems, it adds, including asthma and other respiratory problems.
The suit is seeking civil penalties of $50,000 for each violation of the state environmental law, and $10,000 for each day of the violation.
KCBX has not responded to the lawsuits and did not reply to an NBC News request for comment on them.
The clashes over the petcoke piles in the Midwest are the latest example of the wide-reaching consequences of the North American energy boom, which can impact municipalities in unexpected ways.
While the U.S. is now producing more domestic high quality, "sweet light" crude oil than at any time in the past 20 years, several large Midwest refineries have recently switched to processing lower-grade, heavy crude from Canadas oil sand fields. Transportation bottlenecks that crimp the movement of Canadian crude from the oil sands to refineries have created a glut of the tarry crude, pushing down prices.
To take advantage of the supply, refineries on the Gulf Coast and in the Midwest have altered their operations increasing the size of coker units that break carbon away from lighter materials used in gas and diesel to process the Canadian crude, which produces more petcoke than almost any other type of oil.
“More and more heavy crude is available in their neighborhood,” Rob Smith, a managing director at PFC Energy, a consulting group that specializes in the oil and gas industry, said of the refineries. “The more coking capacity you have, the more petcoke there will be.”
While petcoke can also be used as industrial fuel, along with or instead of coal, there is little domestic demand for it because it produces increased greenhouse gas emissions when burned. That means most of it is exported, but only after being collected in massive piles and then transported to ports.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has set rules that apply to controlling dust from petcoke, but it has not sought to regulate it as a hazardous substance.
Petroleum industry safety guidelines recommend that it be stored to avoid generating heavy concentrations of airborne, finely-ground petroleum coke dust (and) accumulations of finely ground dust on surfaces of equipment or buildings."
Last winter, Marathon Oil completed a $2.2 billion upgrade to its Detroit refinery, which included a near doubling of its coking capacity. By spring, Detroiters were protesting the mountains of black pebbly material rising up along the waterfront.
In August the city cited the company that owns the storage facility for violating city regulations and barred storage of petcoke at the riverside site. Koch Industries later reportedly moved the pile to a site in Toledo, Ohio, according to the Detroit Free Press. A spokesman for the Koch Companies Public Sector did not respond to NBC News requests for comment about the move.
Koch Industries is also the parent company of KCBX, which owns the controversial petcoke piles in Chicago. The Koch family is known for its generous financial support for conservative and libertarian causes and active opposition to environmental regulations.
Chicago’s petcoke comes from a refinery in Whiting, Ind., which is poised to bring online what owner BP (formerly British Petroleum) says is the country’s second-largest coker by the end of the year. The refinery has long processed some heavy crude, but will now devote itself to refining product from the Canadian oil sands. The $3.8 million expansion will increase petcoke production from 600,000 tons per year to 2.2 million, according to a company spokesman.
Petcoke is used by some U.S. industries, notably in making steel and aluminum. But most of the fuel-grade product being produced by the Midwest refineries is eventually exported to China and other Asian countries. Data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration show petcoke exports to China have hit record levels since 2011.
Some environmental groups worry that rock-bottom prices for petcoke will prompt power plants here to make use of it despite the higher emissions.
“They have to dump it in the market cheap,” said Lorne Stockman, author of a critical report on petcoke for the environmental group Oil Change International. “Not all of the U.S. production could be used here, but all of BP Whiting and Marathons production could be soaked up in the Midwest.”
DTE Energy, a Detroit-based energy company, has experimented with using petcoke in an industrial fuel mix to reduce energy costs, according to its website. A power plant in Nova Scotia, Canada, has also made use of some of the coke once piled in Detroit, the New York Times reported last summer.
For Chicago residents, broader concerns about petcoke take a backseat to those close to home. Terms of BPs Clean Air Act permit and a federal legal settlement require the oil company keep the petcoke walled in while on the refinery property, but no such regulations exist for areas where it is stored before being moved to market.
Complaints to the Illinois EPA about the massive mounds of petcoke along the Calumet River increased markedly in December, when KCBX, the Koch subsidiary, acquired the riverfront terminal from DTE Energy, which previously held the contract to move the petcoke from BPs Whiting refinery, according to the lawsuit filed by the state attorney general.
KCBX is in the process of upgrading the terminal, Paul Baltzer, spokesman for its parent company, Koch Companies Public Sector, said in an email statement.
“We are in the final stages of constructing more than $10 million in upgrades, including improvements to the sites dust suppression capabilities,” said Baltzer.
In an emailed statement, a spokesman for BP said the company has been told by KCBX that they are in compliance with Illinois regulations.
Methods of controlling dust with water sprayers have long been in place in California and the Gulf coasts, but rules in Midwestern states are generally less strict. That puts neighbors of the petcoke mounds at risk, said Tom Zimmerman, a lawyer representing residents in the Chicago class-action lawsuit. “This dust is blowing all throughout the neighborhood,” he said of his clients. “There’s nowhere to go, unless they want to be prisoners within their own homes.”
NBC News
Shipwreck recovery will be part of Fox River dredging operation in Green Bay
11/11 - Green Bay, Wis. – The recovery of five sunken 19th century vessels in Green Bay over the next several days will provide plenty of romanticism but no gold bullion and only limited stores of local history, members of the salvage team say.
The boats are little more than “debris with a name,” said Paul Olander, operations manager for J.F. Brennan Co. Inc., which is dredging contaminated sediment from the bottom of the Fox River.
The five vessels are tugboats and barges either intentionally sunk or allowed to sink decades ago after outliving their useful working life, said Richard Feeney of Tetra Tech, which contracts with Brennan for the Fox River cleanup. Now they’re in the way of the sediment cleanup.
The five vessels are all in a cluster behind Tetra Tech, 1611 State St., just north of the southernmost Canadian National Rail Road bridge over Green Bay’s portion of the Fox.
The presence of the wrecks came as no surprise to Tetra Tech and Brennan, hired by area paper companies to clean polychlorinated biphenyls from the river. The bow of one of the boats sticks up out of the water some 13 feet, and the other vessels break the surface whenever water levels recede.
But dredging companies couldn’t just haul the submerged ships out of the area. The site has been nominated to the National Registry of Historic Places, which means Brennan workers need federal permission to do anything there.
“We have a responsibility on the river to do archaeological searches for anything with possible historic value,” Feeney said.
But engineers and dredgers are ill-equipped to determine historic value, so Tetra Tech hired Dolan Research Inc., a maritime archaeological consulting company out of Pennsylvania. That company, through the use of high-tech seismic and magnetic measuring equipment, came up with specific data about the size, shape and exact locations of the five vessels, at least one of which had deteriorated to such a point that it could not definitely be identified as a vessel as opposed to part of a dock.
The company also researched local and regional maritime records, newspaper articles and other sources, including “Wild Gales and Tattered Sails,” by local author Paul Creviere.
Local historians have long identified two of the abandoned vessels as the tug boats Bob Teed and Satisfaction. The two tugs both were built in the 1800s and eventually owned by Waterways Engineering Corp. of Green Bay, which used them for several years before stripping them of their useful gear and leaving them to sink in the 1940s.
Local folklore has it that the Bob Teed is the one sticking up out of the water, and the Satisfaction lies just north of the Bob Teed. Dolan Research isn’t so sure. Both those vessels definitely had been docked in the area in the 1940s, but their dimensions as determined by Dolan don’t exactly match what maritime records say they should. While it’s possible they were modified at some point in their lives to meet the different dimensions, Dolan thinks the vessel sticking out of the water might actually be the CW Kraft, built in 1920 but possibly scuttled on site in the 1940s.
If that’s the case, it’s possible the neighboring vessel is actually the Teed rather than the Satisfaction, Dolan’s research says. But that doesn’t explain what happened to the Satisfaction.
Of the three remaining wrecks, two appear to be old barges and another consists of wood rubble, which may be its own deteriorated barge or have come off one of the other nearby wrecks.
Whatever it is, none of it is intact enough to provide clues to the vessels’ true identities or even general archeological information that isn’t readily available elsewhere, research shows.
“Even if you could remove it, it wouldn’t be intact, it’s so deteriorated,” Olander said. “And it’s contaminated.”
Leaving the stuff at the bottom of the river would prevent environmental cleanup, and recovering it is pretty much out of the question, so Tetra Tech has pitched a different idea: Photograph the more recognizable pieces, compile existing photographs and information about the early days in the Green Bay area’s shipping industry and construct a story board for display at the Neville Public Museum.
The wreckage itself will be landfilled.
The State Historical Society, Department of Natural Resources and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency considered the plan and approved it.
Commonwealth Cultural Resources Group, an archeological and historical services company based in Jackson, Mich., will begin that work after Brennan raises the wreckage.
Under an agreement with the state and federal governments, Commonwealth is required to take numerous photographs of specified size and pixels per inch, extensively label each of them and build a 2-by-3-foot interpretative display addressing the style and significance of the vessels. The agreement spells out other requirements for recording and archiving information about the vessels, all of which must be completed within 60 days of the raising of the vessels.
Brennan will complete its last full day of dredging for the season at the end of next week, after which it expects to start bringing up the wrecks.
It’s not the first time that PCB cleanup uncovered an artifact shrouded in mystery from the Fox River’s floor.
Last year, workers measuring bottom depths using sonar stumbled across a car in 18 feet of water off the end of Cherry Street in downtown Green Bay. It turned out to be a 1975 Plymouth Valiant with Minnesota plates, stolen from a man who left it running outside a tavern in 1979. The vehicle had been put in drive and a tire iron placed to hold down the gas pedal to make the car drive itself into the river, police later determined.
Green Bay Press-Gazette
Today in Great Lakes History - November 11
The Port of Huron, Ohio received its first grain boat in seven years when Westdale Shipping's AVONDALE arrived at the Pillsbury Elevator on November 11, 1971, to load 200,000 bushels of soybeans for Toronto, Ontario.
On 11 November 1883, NEMESIS (2-mast wooden schooner, 74 foot, 82 gross tons, built in 1868, at Goderich, Ontario) was wrecked in a terrific storm that some called a hurricane. She went ashore near Bayfield, Ontario, on Lake Huron. She may have been recovered since her registration was not closed until 1907. In 1876, this little schooner rescued all but one of the crew from the sinking freighter NEW YORK.
The Armistice Day Storm of November 11, 1940, was one of the worst storms in the recorded history of Lake Michigan. In all, the storm claimed 5 vessels, and 66 lives. The storm hit late Monday afternoon, November 11th, with winds of hurricane proportions. The winds struck suddenly from the southwest at about 2:30 p.m. and were accompanied by drenching rain, which later changed to snow. The winds reached peak velocities of 75 miles per hour, the highest in local maritime history.
Some of the vessels affected were: CITY OF FLINT 32: Beached at Ludington, no damage. Jens Vevang, relief captain, in command. Her regular captain, Charles Robertson, was on shore leave. Also: PERE MARQUETTE 21: Blown into a piling at Ludington, no damage, captained by Arthur Altschwager. She had 5 passengers aboard. CITY OF SAGINAW 31: Arrived Milwaukee 6 hours late with over a foot of water in her hull. The wireless aerial was missing and her seagate was smashed by the waves. She was captained by Ed Cronberg. Ann Arbor carferry WABASH: A railcar broke loose from its moorings on her car deck and rolled over, nearly crushing a crewman. The steamer NOVADOC: Ran aground at Juniper Beach, South of Pentwater, Michigan. Two crewman (cooks) drowned when the ship broke in half. Seventeen crewman, found huddled in the pilothouse, were rescued by Captain Clyde Cross and his 2 crewman, Gustave Fisher and Joe Fontane of the fishing tug THREE BROTHERS. CONNEAUT of 1916, ran hard aground on Lansing Shoal near Manistique, Michigan, on Lake Michigan. She reportedly had lost her propeller and rudder. Two days later she was pulled off. The SINALOA had taken on a load of sand near Green Island and was heading for Chicago through Death's Door on Wisconsin's Door Peninsula when the November 11th Armistice Day storm of 1940, struck in upper Lake Michigan. During the storm the SINALOA lost her rudder. The anchor was dropped but her anchor cable parted. In this helpless condition she ran aground at Sac Bay on Michigan's Garden Peninsula. Fortunately the stricken vessel was close to shore where the Coast Guard was able to rescue the entire crew. Declared a constructive total loss, her owner collected the insurance and forfeited the vessel to the Roen Salvage Co.
ANNA C MINCH: Sank South of Pentwater with a loss of 24 lives.
WILLIAM B DAVOCK: of the Interlake fleet, Capt. Charles W. Allen, sank in 215 of water off Pentwater, Michigan. There were no survivors among the crew of 33.
The fishing tugs INDIAN and RICHARD H: Lost with all hands off South Haven, Michigan.
On 11 November 1872, the schooner WILLIS collided with the bark ELIZABETH JONES on Lake Erie and sank in a few minutes. The crew was saved.
On 11 November 1936, J. OSWALD BOYD (steel propeller fuel tanker, 244 foot, 1,806 gross tons, built in 1913, in Scotland) was carrying 900,000 gallons of gasoline when she stranded on Simmons Reef on the north side of Beaver Island. The U.S. Coast Guard from Beaver Island rescued the entire crew of 20.
On 11 November 1890, BRUNO (wooden propeller bulk freighter, 136 foot. 475 gross tons, built in 1863, at Montreal) was carrying coal to Cleveland with the schooner LOUISA in tow when she struck Magnetic Reef, south of Cockburn Island in Georgian Bay and sank in rough weather. No lives were lost.
On 11 November 1835, the 2-mast wooden schooner COMET was carrying iron and ashes on Lake Erie when she foundered in a gale, one mile northwest of Dunkirk, New York. Just her topmasts protruded from the water. All seven on board lost their lives, including a passenger who was a college student bound for Vermont.
In a storm on the night of 11 November 1874, The schooner LA PETITE (3-mast wooden schooner, 119 foot, 172 gross tons, built 1866, J. Ketchum, Huron, Ohio) was on Lake Michigan carrying a cargo of wheat and corn from Chicago when she sprang a bad leak and tried first to reach Ludington, then Manistee. Before reaching safety, she grounded off Big Point au Sable, eight miles from land, in eight feet of water. Previous to striking, the vessel had lost her bowsprit and foremast. After she struck, her main and mizzenmasts went by the board, and the schooner began to break up rapidly. The crew clung to the forecastle deck, and when that washed away, four men were drowned. Captain O. B. Wood had his arms broken by the falling off a square-sail yard. When he fell into the water, the ship's dog jumped in and kept him afloat until they were rescued by the crew of the steam barge CHARLES REITZ. Of the 10 crewmen, six were saved. The LA PETITE was salvaged and repaired and lasted until 1903, when she was lost in another storm.
On 11 Nov 1999, the Maltese flag bulk carrier ALCOR was examined by personnel from Transport Canada, the Canadian Coast Guard, a salvage company and the vessel's owners in hopes of forming a plan to save the vessel. She ran aground on a sand bar off the eastern tip of d'Orleans Island on the St. Lawrence River two days earlier. This vessel did not visit Great Lakes ports under the name ALCOR, but she did so under her two previous names, firstly as PATRICIA V and then as the Soviet flag MEKHANIK DREN. The Groupe Desgagnes finally refloated the ALCOR on 05 Dec 1999, after part of the cargo of clinker had been removed. The ship was then towed to Quebec City. Later, it was reported that Groupe Desgagnes purchased the ALCOR from its Greek owners.
Below is a first hand account of the Storm of 1913, from the journal of John Mc Laughlin transcribed by his great grandson Hugh McNichol. John was working on an unknown vessel during the Storm of 1913. The boat was captained by John McAlpine and Harry Roberts as Chief Engineer. The boat was loading iron ore in Escanaba when the storm started on November 8th.
Tuesday, November 11, 1913: I got up at 12 a.m. and went on watch. We were above Presque Isle. It is still blowing hard and quite a sea running. Presque Isle at 1:45 a.m., Thunder Bay Island at 4:30 a.m., Harbor Beach at 1:00 p.m., we are about in the River at 7:05 p.m. It is fine tonight, wind gone down.
1940: The famous Armistice Day storm claims the ANNA C. MINCH, WILLIAM B. DAVOCK and NOVADOC (ii), on Lake Michigan and leaves CITY OF FLINT 32 and SINALOA aground and damaged.
1946: The former Canada Steamship lines bulk canaller LANARK was scuttled off the coast of Ireland with a load of World War Two bombs.
1977: The 380-foot, 8-inch long West German freighter GLORIA made 4 visits to the Great Lakes in 1959-1960. It went aground on the Adriatic at Sestrice Island as d) ARISTOTELES. While the 25-year old hull was refloated, it was declared a total loss and towed to Split, Yugoslavia, for scrapping.
1980: The DINIE S. suffered an engineroom fire at Palermo, Italy and became a total loss. The ship had visited the Seaway as a) CATHERINE SARTORI (1959-1967) and b) CURSA (1967) and was sailing under a seventh name. It was scrapped at Palermo in 1985
1980: CITY OF LICHFIELD stranded near Antalya, Turkey, while leaving the anchorage in heavy weather as c) CITY OF LEEDS. The ship was refloated but never sailed again and was eventually scrapped at Aliaga, Turkey, in 1984. The ship had visited the Great Lakes in 1964.
1995: JAMES NORRIS was loading stone at Colborne, ON when the wind changed leaving the hull exposed to the gale. The ship was repeatedly pounded against the dock until it settled on the bottom. Subsequent hull repairs at Port Weller Dry Docks resulted in the port side being all welded while the starboard remained riveted.
1995: The Cuban freighter AREITO had a mechanical problem in the St. Lambert Lock and had to be towed back to Montreal for repairs. This SD-14 class vessel was scrapped at Alang, India, as e) DUNLIN in 2001.
www.facebook.com/SaveTheStMarysChallenger
Last trip ending today for St. Marys Challenger
11/11 - St. Marys Challenger is expected to arrive under her own steam sometime today at Bay Shipbuilding Co. at Sturgeon Bay, Wis., to be converted to a barge. She made her final run up Lake Michigan Sunday.
Fittingly, her final passage from the Calumet River as a self-powered vessel was delayed by a malfunctioning bridge. When the vessel was known as Medusa Challenger, Chicago auto traffic was often delayed as she passed through malfunctioning bridges. At 5 p.m. Sunday, the St. Marys Challenger was approaching Lake Michigan after a delay waiting for the Nickel Plate Bridge near Torrence Avenue to open. The bridge was stuck in the down position.
The Challenger departed her unloading dock on the Calumet River at noon CST Sunday. The historic steamer made one stop in the Calumet at 106th Street to drop off cargo gear before proceeding out of the river on its voyage to Sturgeon Bay. The St. Marys Challenger arrived at the South Chicago Terminal in Lake Calumet shortly before midnight Friday.
From YESTERDAY:
St. Marys Challenger on final run before barge conversion
11/10 - 5 p.m. update - At 5 p.m. the St. Marys Challenger was approaching Lake Michigan after a delay waiting for the Nickel Plate Bridge near Torrence Avenue to open. The bridge was stuck in the down position.
9:30 a.m. update - The Challenger is expected to depart a Noon CST today. The historic steamer will make one stop in the Calumet at 106th Street to drop off cargo gear, before proceeding out of the Calumet River on its voyage to Sturgeon Bay, Wis.
Original Report- Chicago, Ill. - After weeks of speculation, the oldest freighter on the Great Lakes and one with a special place in Chicago history is unloading its last load of cement, before steaming to Sturgeon Bay, Wis., to be transformed into a barge.
The St. Marys Challenger, arrived at the South Chicago Terminal in Lake Calumet shortly before midnight Friday.
A number of the ships fans and she has many lined bridges along the Calumet River to get late-night photos of the 551-foot-long freighter close-up. The enthusiasts came from as far away as Massachusetts and New York.
Were talking about a ship that was built before the Titanic, said Richard Jenkins, of Lawrence, Mass., who chased the Challenger from Chicago to Michigan and back.
He said the Challenger is the last active U.S. flag freighter built before World War II, and at 107 years, one of the oldest operating ships in the world, which he credited to the fact that for most of her career, she worked on the Great Lakes and not in salt water.
The powdered cement delivery, which continued until late Saturday afternoon, marked the conclusion of a second career for the freighter, one which began when she was rebuilt for the cement-hauling trade in 1967-68.
She earned a spot in Chicago infamy between 1968 and 1979, when she unloaded regularly at the old Penn Dixie pier on Goose Island. Routinely, bridges that opened as wide as possible to allow her through would become stuck in the up position in her wake.
The Challenger remains the longest ship ever to traverse the Chicago River.
One sailor who worked aboard the Challenger for five years in the 1970s said he was hard-pressed to remember any trip in which at least one bridge leaf did not become stuck.
Beginning in 1979 and continuing until Saturday, the ships southern port of call was Lake Calumet, although she also made regular stops in Milwaukee and several other Wisconsin ports, depending on the transportation needs of her owner.
Those who spoke with the crew said the mood on board has become increasingly somber in the past few weeks, as speculation grew about the future of the ship, which is due for a mandatory five-year federal inspection.
Although the Challenger's owner said it was trying to decide between re-engining the ship, the last oil-burning steamship on the Great Lakes, with a new diesel engine and transforming it into a barge, others said the decision was made some time ago and already has a tug waiting in Muskegon, Mich., to begin its pushing chores.
The Chicago History Museum is among those hoping to obtain a piece of the ship as it is transformed. Some ship enthusiasts said they understand the dollars-and-cents decision that had to be made, but Jenkins said they should leave the ship as she is.
The Challenger’s departure was delayed Saturday due to weather. It looks like there may be a window early Sunday afternoon, please check back for updates.
CBS
Lawsuit filed over KCBX petcoke piles along Calumet River
11/11 - Chicago, Ill. – Along the banks of Chicago’s Calumet River, growing piles of black dust up to five stories high a byproduct of oil refining called petcoke have sparked two lawsuits that allege the towering mounds pose grave threats to the environment and people of the city’s Southeast side.
The granular, coal-like material -- a carbon-rich residue from crude oil refining called petroleum coke, but often referred to as petcoke -- is used as an industrial fuel and has long been stored in open lots in Midwestern cities.
There is little U.S. market for petcoke because it burns dirty, producing more emissions than coal. But as refineries across the country have begun processing more heavy, carbon-rich crude oil from Canada’s oil sands fields, they have likewise been producing more petcoke. And though American entrepreneurs, led by the Koch brothers, have discovered a booming market for petcoke in China, the piles have grown larger.
Now residents of Chicago fear a repeat of what happened this summer in Detroit, when a high wind caught a mountain of petcoke on the lakefront and created a swirling tornado-shaped black cloud that stretched to the sky and blew into Ontario. The cloud made the national news in Canada.
The mountain that unleashed the cloud was owned by Koch Carbon, a subsidiary of Koch Industries. The resulting outcry reportedly led the company to relocate the pile to Ohio.
The mountains in Chicago are owned by a different Koch Industries subsidiary, KCBX, which now faces lawsuits from the Illinois attorney general, who is alleging violations of the states Environmental Protection Act, and neighbors of the petcoke piles. The residents of the South Deering and East Side neighborhoods are seeking damages in a class-action lawsuit for alleged harm to property and health. Both lawsuits also seek force the companies involved in storage and moving the petcoke to put in measures to control the dust that residents say has become a constant nuisance.
There will be a growing amount of petcoke that is coming to these areas, said Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan. To the extent that there is already a problem, there is grave concern that there will be a much larger problem very soon.
The AGs suit, filed this week, alleges that the company failed to control dust on its storage site, which it said at times held as much as 350,000 tons of petcoke in piles up to 60 feet high. When the dust blows into the nearby neighborhoods, including two schools and a park within a mile, it gets into peoples eyes, is inhaled and coats peoples homes...threatening human health, the complaint states. Inhaling petcoke dust could potentially cause serious health problems, it adds, including asthma and other respiratory problems.
The suit is seeking civil penalties of $50,000 for each violation of the state environmental law, and $10,000 for each day of the violation.
KCBX has not responded to the lawsuits and did not reply to an NBC News request for comment on them.
The clashes over the petcoke piles in the Midwest are the latest example of the wide-reaching consequences of the North American energy boom, which can impact municipalities in unexpected ways.
While the U.S. is now producing more domestic high quality, "sweet light" crude oil than at any time in the past 20 years, several large Midwest refineries have recently switched to processing lower-grade, heavy crude from Canadas oil sand fields. Transportation bottlenecks that crimp the movement of Canadian crude from the oil sands to refineries have created a glut of the tarry crude, pushing down prices.
To take advantage of the supply, refineries on the Gulf Coast and in the Midwest have altered their operations increasing the size of coker units that break carbon away from lighter materials used in gas and diesel to process the Canadian crude, which produces more petcoke than almost any other type of oil.
“More and more heavy crude is available in their neighborhood,” Rob Smith, a managing director at PFC Energy, a consulting group that specializes in the oil and gas industry, said of the refineries. “The more coking capacity you have, the more petcoke there will be.”
While petcoke can also be used as industrial fuel, along with or instead of coal, there is little domestic demand for it because it produces increased greenhouse gas emissions when burned. That means most of it is exported, but only after being collected in massive piles and then transported to ports.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has set rules that apply to controlling dust from petcoke, but it has not sought to regulate it as a hazardous substance.
Petroleum industry safety guidelines recommend that it be stored to avoid generating heavy concentrations of airborne, finely-ground petroleum coke dust (and) accumulations of finely ground dust on surfaces of equipment or buildings."
Last winter, Marathon Oil completed a $2.2 billion upgrade to its Detroit refinery, which included a near doubling of its coking capacity. By spring, Detroiters were protesting the mountains of black pebbly material rising up along the waterfront.
In August the city cited the company that owns the storage facility for violating city regulations and barred storage of petcoke at the riverside site. Koch Industries later reportedly moved the pile to a site in Toledo, Ohio, according to the Detroit Free Press. A spokesman for the Koch Companies Public Sector did not respond to NBC News requests for comment about the move.
Koch Industries is also the parent company of KCBX, which owns the controversial petcoke piles in Chicago. The Koch family is known for its generous financial support for conservative and libertarian causes and active opposition to environmental regulations.
Chicago’s petcoke comes from a refinery in Whiting, Ind., which is poised to bring online what owner BP (formerly British Petroleum) says is the country’s second-largest coker by the end of the year. The refinery has long processed some heavy crude, but will now devote itself to refining product from the Canadian oil sands. The $3.8 million expansion will increase petcoke production from 600,000 tons per year to 2.2 million, according to a company spokesman.
Petcoke is used by some U.S. industries, notably in making steel and aluminum. But most of the fuel-grade product being produced by the Midwest refineries is eventually exported to China and other Asian countries. Data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration show petcoke exports to China have hit record levels since 2011.
Some environmental groups worry that rock-bottom prices for petcoke will prompt power plants here to make use of it despite the higher emissions.
“They have to dump it in the market cheap,” said Lorne Stockman, author of a critical report on petcoke for the environmental group Oil Change International. “Not all of the U.S. production could be used here, but all of BP Whiting and Marathons production could be soaked up in the Midwest.”
DTE Energy, a Detroit-based energy company, has experimented with using petcoke in an industrial fuel mix to reduce energy costs, according to its website. A power plant in Nova Scotia, Canada, has also made use of some of the coke once piled in Detroit, the New York Times reported last summer.
For Chicago residents, broader concerns about petcoke take a backseat to those close to home. Terms of BPs Clean Air Act permit and a federal legal settlement require the oil company keep the petcoke walled in while on the refinery property, but no such regulations exist for areas where it is stored before being moved to market.
Complaints to the Illinois EPA about the massive mounds of petcoke along the Calumet River increased markedly in December, when KCBX, the Koch subsidiary, acquired the riverfront terminal from DTE Energy, which previously held the contract to move the petcoke from BPs Whiting refinery, according to the lawsuit filed by the state attorney general.
KCBX is in the process of upgrading the terminal, Paul Baltzer, spokesman for its parent company, Koch Companies Public Sector, said in an email statement.
“We are in the final stages of constructing more than $10 million in upgrades, including improvements to the sites dust suppression capabilities,” said Baltzer.
In an emailed statement, a spokesman for BP said the company has been told by KCBX that they are in compliance with Illinois regulations.
Methods of controlling dust with water sprayers have long been in place in California and the Gulf coasts, but rules in Midwestern states are generally less strict. That puts neighbors of the petcoke mounds at risk, said Tom Zimmerman, a lawyer representing residents in the Chicago class-action lawsuit. “This dust is blowing all throughout the neighborhood,” he said of his clients. “There’s nowhere to go, unless they want to be prisoners within their own homes.”
NBC News
Shipwreck recovery will be part of Fox River dredging operation in Green Bay
11/11 - Green Bay, Wis. – The recovery of five sunken 19th century vessels in Green Bay over the next several days will provide plenty of romanticism but no gold bullion and only limited stores of local history, members of the salvage team say.
The boats are little more than “debris with a name,” said Paul Olander, operations manager for J.F. Brennan Co. Inc., which is dredging contaminated sediment from the bottom of the Fox River.
The five vessels are tugboats and barges either intentionally sunk or allowed to sink decades ago after outliving their useful working life, said Richard Feeney of Tetra Tech, which contracts with Brennan for the Fox River cleanup. Now they’re in the way of the sediment cleanup.
The five vessels are all in a cluster behind Tetra Tech, 1611 State St., just north of the southernmost Canadian National Rail Road bridge over Green Bay’s portion of the Fox.
The presence of the wrecks came as no surprise to Tetra Tech and Brennan, hired by area paper companies to clean polychlorinated biphenyls from the river. The bow of one of the boats sticks up out of the water some 13 feet, and the other vessels break the surface whenever water levels recede.
But dredging companies couldn’t just haul the submerged ships out of the area. The site has been nominated to the National Registry of Historic Places, which means Brennan workers need federal permission to do anything there.
“We have a responsibility on the river to do archaeological searches for anything with possible historic value,” Feeney said.
But engineers and dredgers are ill-equipped to determine historic value, so Tetra Tech hired Dolan Research Inc., a maritime archaeological consulting company out of Pennsylvania. That company, through the use of high-tech seismic and magnetic measuring equipment, came up with specific data about the size, shape and exact locations of the five vessels, at least one of which had deteriorated to such a point that it could not definitely be identified as a vessel as opposed to part of a dock.
The company also researched local and regional maritime records, newspaper articles and other sources, including “Wild Gales and Tattered Sails,” by local author Paul Creviere.
Local historians have long identified two of the abandoned vessels as the tug boats Bob Teed and Satisfaction. The two tugs both were built in the 1800s and eventually owned by Waterways Engineering Corp. of Green Bay, which used them for several years before stripping them of their useful gear and leaving them to sink in the 1940s.
Local folklore has it that the Bob Teed is the one sticking up out of the water, and the Satisfaction lies just north of the Bob Teed. Dolan Research isn’t so sure. Both those vessels definitely had been docked in the area in the 1940s, but their dimensions as determined by Dolan don’t exactly match what maritime records say they should. While it’s possible they were modified at some point in their lives to meet the different dimensions, Dolan thinks the vessel sticking out of the water might actually be the CW Kraft, built in 1920 but possibly scuttled on site in the 1940s.
If that’s the case, it’s possible the neighboring vessel is actually the Teed rather than the Satisfaction, Dolan’s research says. But that doesn’t explain what happened to the Satisfaction.
Of the three remaining wrecks, two appear to be old barges and another consists of wood rubble, which may be its own deteriorated barge or have come off one of the other nearby wrecks.
Whatever it is, none of it is intact enough to provide clues to the vessels’ true identities or even general archeological information that isn’t readily available elsewhere, research shows.
“Even if you could remove it, it wouldn’t be intact, it’s so deteriorated,” Olander said. “And it’s contaminated.”
Leaving the stuff at the bottom of the river would prevent environmental cleanup, and recovering it is pretty much out of the question, so Tetra Tech has pitched a different idea: Photograph the more recognizable pieces, compile existing photographs and information about the early days in the Green Bay area’s shipping industry and construct a story board for display at the Neville Public Museum.
The wreckage itself will be landfilled.
The State Historical Society, Department of Natural Resources and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency considered the plan and approved it.
Commonwealth Cultural Resources Group, an archeological and historical services company based in Jackson, Mich., will begin that work after Brennan raises the wreckage.
Under an agreement with the state and federal governments, Commonwealth is required to take numerous photographs of specified size and pixels per inch, extensively label each of them and build a 2-by-3-foot interpretative display addressing the style and significance of the vessels. The agreement spells out other requirements for recording and archiving information about the vessels, all of which must be completed within 60 days of the raising of the vessels.
Brennan will complete its last full day of dredging for the season at the end of next week, after which it expects to start bringing up the wrecks.
It’s not the first time that PCB cleanup uncovered an artifact shrouded in mystery from the Fox River’s floor.
Last year, workers measuring bottom depths using sonar stumbled across a car in 18 feet of water off the end of Cherry Street in downtown Green Bay. It turned out to be a 1975 Plymouth Valiant with Minnesota plates, stolen from a man who left it running outside a tavern in 1979. The vehicle had been put in drive and a tire iron placed to hold down the gas pedal to make the car drive itself into the river, police later determined.
Green Bay Press-Gazette
Today in Great Lakes History - November 11
The Port of Huron, Ohio received its first grain boat in seven years when Westdale Shipping's AVONDALE arrived at the Pillsbury Elevator on November 11, 1971, to load 200,000 bushels of soybeans for Toronto, Ontario.
On 11 November 1883, NEMESIS (2-mast wooden schooner, 74 foot, 82 gross tons, built in 1868, at Goderich, Ontario) was wrecked in a terrific storm that some called a hurricane. She went ashore near Bayfield, Ontario, on Lake Huron. She may have been recovered since her registration was not closed until 1907. In 1876, this little schooner rescued all but one of the crew from the sinking freighter NEW YORK.
The Armistice Day Storm of November 11, 1940, was one of the worst storms in the recorded history of Lake Michigan. In all, the storm claimed 5 vessels, and 66 lives. The storm hit late Monday afternoon, November 11th, with winds of hurricane proportions. The winds struck suddenly from the southwest at about 2:30 p.m. and were accompanied by drenching rain, which later changed to snow. The winds reached peak velocities of 75 miles per hour, the highest in local maritime history.
Some of the vessels affected were: CITY OF FLINT 32: Beached at Ludington, no damage. Jens Vevang, relief captain, in command. Her regular captain, Charles Robertson, was on shore leave. Also: PERE MARQUETTE 21: Blown into a piling at Ludington, no damage, captained by Arthur Altschwager. She had 5 passengers aboard. CITY OF SAGINAW 31: Arrived Milwaukee 6 hours late with over a foot of water in her hull. The wireless aerial was missing and her seagate was smashed by the waves. She was captained by Ed Cronberg. Ann Arbor carferry WABASH: A railcar broke loose from its moorings on her car deck and rolled over, nearly crushing a crewman. The steamer NOVADOC: Ran aground at Juniper Beach, South of Pentwater, Michigan. Two crewman (cooks) drowned when the ship broke in half. Seventeen crewman, found huddled in the pilothouse, were rescued by Captain Clyde Cross and his 2 crewman, Gustave Fisher and Joe Fontane of the fishing tug THREE BROTHERS. CONNEAUT of 1916, ran hard aground on Lansing Shoal near Manistique, Michigan, on Lake Michigan. She reportedly had lost her propeller and rudder. Two days later she was pulled off. The SINALOA had taken on a load of sand near Green Island and was heading for Chicago through Death's Door on Wisconsin's Door Peninsula when the November 11th Armistice Day storm of 1940, struck in upper Lake Michigan. During the storm the SINALOA lost her rudder. The anchor was dropped but her anchor cable parted. In this helpless condition she ran aground at Sac Bay on Michigan's Garden Peninsula. Fortunately the stricken vessel was close to shore where the Coast Guard was able to rescue the entire crew. Declared a constructive total loss, her owner collected the insurance and forfeited the vessel to the Roen Salvage Co.
ANNA C MINCH: Sank South of Pentwater with a loss of 24 lives.
WILLIAM B DAVOCK: of the Interlake fleet, Capt. Charles W. Allen, sank in 215 of water off Pentwater, Michigan. There were no survivors among the crew of 33.
The fishing tugs INDIAN and RICHARD H: Lost with all hands off South Haven, Michigan.
On 11 November 1872, the schooner WILLIS collided with the bark ELIZABETH JONES on Lake Erie and sank in a few minutes. The crew was saved.
On 11 November 1936, J. OSWALD BOYD (steel propeller fuel tanker, 244 foot, 1,806 gross tons, built in 1913, in Scotland) was carrying 900,000 gallons of gasoline when she stranded on Simmons Reef on the north side of Beaver Island. The U.S. Coast Guard from Beaver Island rescued the entire crew of 20.
On 11 November 1890, BRUNO (wooden propeller bulk freighter, 136 foot. 475 gross tons, built in 1863, at Montreal) was carrying coal to Cleveland with the schooner LOUISA in tow when she struck Magnetic Reef, south of Cockburn Island in Georgian Bay and sank in rough weather. No lives were lost.
On 11 November 1835, the 2-mast wooden schooner COMET was carrying iron and ashes on Lake Erie when she foundered in a gale, one mile northwest of Dunkirk, New York. Just her topmasts protruded from the water. All seven on board lost their lives, including a passenger who was a college student bound for Vermont.
In a storm on the night of 11 November 1874, The schooner LA PETITE (3-mast wooden schooner, 119 foot, 172 gross tons, built 1866, J. Ketchum, Huron, Ohio) was on Lake Michigan carrying a cargo of wheat and corn from Chicago when she sprang a bad leak and tried first to reach Ludington, then Manistee. Before reaching safety, she grounded off Big Point au Sable, eight miles from land, in eight feet of water. Previous to striking, the vessel had lost her bowsprit and foremast. After she struck, her main and mizzenmasts went by the board, and the schooner began to break up rapidly. The crew clung to the forecastle deck, and when that washed away, four men were drowned. Captain O. B. Wood had his arms broken by the falling off a square-sail yard. When he fell into the water, the ship's dog jumped in and kept him afloat until they were rescued by the crew of the steam barge CHARLES REITZ. Of the 10 crewmen, six were saved. The LA PETITE was salvaged and repaired and lasted until 1903, when she was lost in another storm.
On 11 Nov 1999, the Maltese flag bulk carrier ALCOR was examined by personnel from Transport Canada, the Canadian Coast Guard, a salvage company and the vessel's owners in hopes of forming a plan to save the vessel. She ran aground on a sand bar off the eastern tip of d'Orleans Island on the St. Lawrence River two days earlier. This vessel did not visit Great Lakes ports under the name ALCOR, but she did so under her two previous names, firstly as PATRICIA V and then as the Soviet flag MEKHANIK DREN. The Groupe Desgagnes finally refloated the ALCOR on 05 Dec 1999, after part of the cargo of clinker had been removed. The ship was then towed to Quebec City. Later, it was reported that Groupe Desgagnes purchased the ALCOR from its Greek owners.
Below is a first hand account of the Storm of 1913, from the journal of John Mc Laughlin transcribed by his great grandson Hugh McNichol. John was working on an unknown vessel during the Storm of 1913. The boat was captained by John McAlpine and Harry Roberts as Chief Engineer. The boat was loading iron ore in Escanaba when the storm started on November 8th.
Tuesday, November 11, 1913: I got up at 12 a.m. and went on watch. We were above Presque Isle. It is still blowing hard and quite a sea running. Presque Isle at 1:45 a.m., Thunder Bay Island at 4:30 a.m., Harbor Beach at 1:00 p.m., we are about in the River at 7:05 p.m. It is fine tonight, wind gone down.
1940: The famous Armistice Day storm claims the ANNA C. MINCH, WILLIAM B. DAVOCK and NOVADOC (ii), on Lake Michigan and leaves CITY OF FLINT 32 and SINALOA aground and damaged.
1946: The former Canada Steamship lines bulk canaller LANARK was scuttled off the coast of Ireland with a load of World War Two bombs.
1977: The 380-foot, 8-inch long West German freighter GLORIA made 4 visits to the Great Lakes in 1959-1960. It went aground on the Adriatic at Sestrice Island as d) ARISTOTELES. While the 25-year old hull was refloated, it was declared a total loss and towed to Split, Yugoslavia, for scrapping.
1980: The DINIE S. suffered an engineroom fire at Palermo, Italy and became a total loss. The ship had visited the Seaway as a) CATHERINE SARTORI (1959-1967) and b) CURSA (1967) and was sailing under a seventh name. It was scrapped at Palermo in 1985
1980: CITY OF LICHFIELD stranded near Antalya, Turkey, while leaving the anchorage in heavy weather as c) CITY OF LEEDS. The ship was refloated but never sailed again and was eventually scrapped at Aliaga, Turkey, in 1984. The ship had visited the Great Lakes in 1964.
1995: JAMES NORRIS was loading stone at Colborne, ON when the wind changed leaving the hull exposed to the gale. The ship was repeatedly pounded against the dock until it settled on the bottom. Subsequent hull repairs at Port Weller Dry Docks resulted in the port side being all welded while the starboard remained riveted.
1995: The Cuban freighter AREITO had a mechanical problem in the St. Lambert Lock and had to be towed back to Montreal for repairs. This SD-14 class vessel was scrapped at Alang, India, as e) DUNLIN in 2001.