OFFICIALS HOPE TO IDENTIFY OBJECT BARGE STRUCK IN RIVER

Coast Guard and Corps of Engineers survey boats will sound the bottom of the Mississippi River near Grays Point early next month to attempt to identify a submerged object that collided with a barge tow last week.

Authorities said the towboat Alois Luhr was pushing a barge tow of rock rip-rap enroute to Baton Rouge, La., when one of the barges struck a submerged object near the Missouri shore at Mile 47.6. The site is between the mouth of the slackwater harbor of the Southeast Missouri Regional Port and Westlake Quarry.

Commander Jack Buri of the Coast Guard marine safety office in Paducah, Ky., said the incident occurred Dec. 19. Buri said the captain of the Alois Luhr reported the barge tow was about 100 feet out from the edge of the bank when it struck the object.

Buri said one wing tank on the side of the barge was punctured by the object and some of the face wires that hold the barge tow to the towboat were severed by the impact of the collision. Buri said the leak in the damaged barge was stopped and the broken face wires repaired, and the Alois Luhr continued downstream to its destination.

"The report said the object was dragged by the barge for some distance after the collision before it apparently fell into a hole in the river," Buri said.

"We are concerned because the river stage at Cape Girardeau was 20.4 feet when the incident occurred. It's very unusual for something like this to happen with that much water in the river."

Buri and Corps officials speculated the object might be a sunken barge or a steel cover to a barge; however, there are no reports of any sunken barges at that site.