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 critical commercial arteries.
The pecking order was based on Coast Guard determination of the economic importance of the ships' cargo, and the pace was slowed by a scrubbing process to remove 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 early Wednesday. About 419,000 gallons of fuel oil spilled from the barge into the Mississippi at New Orleans.
The shutdown of a 100-mile stretch of river to the Gulf of Mexico halted vessels ranging from oil supertankers to grain barges in one of the world's busiest ports.
Gary LaGrange, executive director of the Port of New Orleans, said a recent economic impact study conducted by the port showed that a total shutdown could cost the national economy $275 million a day.
The first ship to head north from the river's mouth, the Overseas New York, was cleared to sail to the refinery corridor that lines the river between New Orleans and Baton Rouge.
Traffic-copping the situation was a Coast Guard unit established after Katrina to handle river shutdowns, said Coast Guard Capt. Lincoln Stroh.
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