Three barges, one in all them transporting about 1,400 tons of methanol, have been pinned in opposition to a dam on the Ohio River in Louisville, Kentucky, on Tuesday, officers mentioned.
The three have been a part of a gaggle of 10 that broke free from their tugboat about 2 a.m. Tuesday after it hit with a construction on the entrance to the Portland Canal, close to the river’s McAlpine Locks and Dam, Louisville’s Emergency Administration Company mentioned in an announcement. One barge remained hooked up, and all apart from the one carrying methanol have been transporting soy and corn, the company mentioned.
“There may be at the moment zero proof of a tank breach or any leaks, and air and water monitoring sources are in place,” the assertion mentioned.

The scenario prompted officers to restrict visitors on the river as state and federal businesses responded and tried to take away the three barges, Coast Guard spokesperson Chris Davis mentioned.
Downriver visitors has been stopped, and close by locks that had reopened after earlier closings would almost certainly shut once more in a single day as officers reassess the scenario, he mentioned.
“We had shut down visitors,” Davis mentioned. “There’s going to be salvage operations, and it should be harmful.”
The Louisville Water Co. mentioned that the incident was downriver from its consumption and that subsequently there was no impression on town’s consuming water.
“Your water is protected to drink,” it mentioned on Fb.
The seven different barges that broke unfastened have been recovered earlier by different vessels within the space, the Military Corps of Engineers mentioned.

No accidents have been reported, and nobody is lacking, it mentioned.
Methanol is utilized in windshield washer fluid, fuel line antifreeze, carburetor cleaner, copy machine fluid, perfumes and different merchandise. A part of a gaggle of “poisonous alcohols,” the chemical will be “extraordinarily harmful” to people if ingested and may end up in demise, coma and respiratory and circulatory failure, in accordance with a white paper on the chemical revealed by federal well being officers.
The Coast Guard is investigating the reason for the crash that freed the barges.
Clare Secrist and Matthew Mata contributed.