After Fire, Large Box Ship CCNI Arauco Leaves Question of Disposal of Contaminated Water and Toxic Foam

Image courtesy Hamburg Police Department / Twitter

By MarEx 2016-09-13 20:41:26

The fire aboard the container ship CCNI Arauco was safely extinguished September 3, after 48 hours and multiple attempts – but the ship still remains in Hamburg harbor, and authorities are trying figuring out what to do with thousands of tons of contaminated firefighting water in her holds.

In addition to the combustion residues in the water, firefighters pumped 12,000 gallons of firefighting foam through the ventilation system and into the Arauco's hold. Modern firefighting foams all contain perfluorocarbon surfactants; while manufacturers have made changes in recent years, these chemicals are in a family of compounds under scrutiny by regulators for the risk of persistent environmental contamination. Among other impacts, this has lead to multimillon-dollar cleanup costs for the U.S. Department of Defense, the leading user of older formulations of AFFF (aqueous film forming foam, more commonly known as "A-triple-F").

The 2015-built Arauco is set to go to Bremerhaven for repairs, but Bremerhaven lacks facilities for properly receiving the wastewater, authorities say. They have called for the water to be pumped off and treated locally before her departure.

Separately, media in Hamburg have raised concerns that the difficulty of extinguishing the blaze on the Arauco reflects poorly on the preparedness of local emergency services – and suggests that the size of ever-growing container vessels may be changing the nature of a casualty in port. 

Hamburg's two fire boats are small relative to the size of modern commercial vessels and have been in service for four decades; the fire department's supplies of AFFF were inadequate to the task of filling one hold, and additional quantities had to be borrowed from aircraft manufacturer Airbus and from Tamoil's Holborn refinery (not uncommon, said fire department spokesman Torsten Wessely); and the men and firefighting ships available to fight the fire had to be augmented with reinforcements from nearby port cities, reports local outlet MOPO. 


Indeed, big ships create bigger problems. Let this be a lesson for all ports that happily and willingly accept these potential "mega" disasters waiting to happen. Are you prepared for such possibilities? Curious as to how & why hold wasn't closed with hatch top? A similar incident occurred in Seattle with a containership years ago. A firefighter and crane operator had to don SCBA gear to go and close cargo hold after several early attempts to contain fire failed. Are firefighting units at our ports as well trained (and equipped with resources) as they think they really are?

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Container ship CCNI ARAUCO fire: Sep 02 Update: fire still on, hold filled with water: the blaze was started by welding work in the hold

Container ship CCNI ARAUCO fire: Sep 02 Update: fire still on, hold filled with water

Sept. 2, 2016 at 13:52 by Mikhail Voytenko


Sep 02 1300 UTC Update: According to latest available information, fire fighting still goes on with fire alert being next to utmost. Hold with burning containers was sealed and filled with CO2 gas in the evening Sep 01, but after that, temperature began to rise again, making impossible the offloading of the containers from the hold. By noon Sep 02 temperature was still too high , fire was still on. It was decided to fill the hold with water up to 70 percent of hold’s volume, though there’s the risk, that hull may crack, due to thermal differential.

Sep 02 0230 UTC Update:
According to available information, fire fighting is still going on, part or all burning containers are in hold, which of course, complicates fire fighting. Tugs are cooling the hull by pouring water on it, temperature inside is so high, that specialist fear hull may crack. It was said, that there were no containers with dangerous goods, either on fire or near fire, but of course, it’s impossible to ascertain at present stage. Three crew understood to be injured, hopefully not seriously, during initial attempts to extinguish fire, all crew said to be evacuated.

Mega container ship CCNI ARAUCO , docked in Hamburg, Burchardkai, reportedly under major fire, after an explosion at around 1300 LT Sept 01, which took place aft, understood in container. Some 80 fire fighting teams said to be deployed. 

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Photos: Container Ship in Hamburg Harbor Still Burns

Image courtesy Feuerwehr Hamburg 

 

By MarEx 2016-09-02 19:21:32 

More than 30 hours after ignition, the fire in the hold of the container vessel CCNI Arauco continues to burn, say authorities with the Hamburg Fire Department – and efforts to combat the final remaining pockets of the blaze may continue through the weekend. 

Three attempts to extinguish the fire by filling the after hold compartment with CO2 were not successful, and in consultation with the vessel’s operator the firefighting team moved to flood the compartment with water. Responders used water supplied from shore and from the multipurpose emergency response vessel Neuwerk to partially fill the hold through the vents; the hatch covers remained in place.   

As of Friday evening, the hold was flooded as much as the vessel's stability would allow, and pumping in more water is not a possibility, the fire department said. 

"The next step is a comprehensive foam attack from the water side and the land side . . . it will be redundant so that the foam attack is not interrupted," the agency said in an online update.

The depth of the fire’s location within the hold has added complexity to the response by limiting responders’ ability to access the source. 

Emergency services personnel from other cities have joined the effort, including Bremerhaven's specially trained team of 10 marine firefighters. 

The Hamburg fire department confirmed that the 1,250 tonnes of dangerous goods on board the Arauco are located well forward and safely away from the blaze. 

Authorities believe that the blaze was started by welding work in the hold, which led to the spread of a fire belowdecks. Three workers suffered minor injuries in the fire and were taken to a hospital. 

Crew Member Dies After Being Hit by Water Cannon during a test of ship’s firefighting equipment

MV Astro Tamoio. Photo: MarineTraffic.com

September 13, 2016 by gCaptain
 A crew member of an offshore supply vessel has died in Brazil after being hit with the waterjet shot from the vessel’s water cannon, Brazilian media has reported.

Three others were also injured.

The incident occurred Monday aboard the Astro Tamoio, a Brazilian-flagged OSV that is on charter with Petrobras, while the vessel was in Guanabara Bay near Rio de Janeiro.

The four people were reportedly on the deck of the OSV when they were hit with the water during a test of the ship’s firefighting equipment.

Local reports said the Navy was not on hand during the test as is required by law.

The Astro Tamoio was built in 2014 and is owned by Astromarítima Navigation of Brazil.

POLICE CHASES MUST STOP BECAUSE THEY CAUSE MORE INJURY AND DAMAGE THAN THEY WORTH: NJ man fleeing police crashes, kills innocent woman

Tuesday, September 13, 2016 05:15PM
HAMILTON TWP., N.J. (WPVI) -- Authorities say a man fleeing police after a drug deal crashed his SUV into another vehicle, killing the other driver.

Chandler Heaviside faces numerous charges, including death by auto while under the influence of drugs and causing death while driving with a suspended license. It wasn't known Tuesday if the 22-year-old Jackson man has retained an attorney.










Mercer County prosecutors say state police tried to stop Heaviside's SUV in Trenton after they saw an apparent drug deal. But they say he drove away at a high rate of speed.

The pursuit continued into Hamilton Township but was soon ended.

Prosecutors say the SUV later ran a red light and crashed into a car driven by 22-year-old Deja Farrior, of Trenton. She was taken to a hospital but died there a short time later.




AS WE HAVE OPINED MANY TIMES BEFORE, ALL POLICE CHASES MUST STOP BECAUSE THEY CAUSE MORE INJURY AND DAMAGE THAN THEY WORTH TO THE PUBLIC.



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Outrage after NJ woman killed by vehicle involved in chase







The grief and outrage continues in New Jersey after a 22-year-old woman was hit and killed by a man who had been involved in a police chase.

Thursday, September 15, 2016 12:03AM
HAMILTON TWP., N.J. (WPVI) -- The grief and outrage continues in New Jersey after a 22-year-old woman was hit and killed by a man who had been involved in a police chase.

Deja Farrior had just dropped off her cousin and was heading to her brother's house when the crash happened on Monday night in Hamilton Township.

That's when her Honda Civic was struck by a Chevy Trailblazer driven by 22-year-old Chandler Heaviside.





Farrior was pronounced dead at the hospital. Mercer County Prosecutors say Heaviside is charged with her death.

"She never gave me any trouble. The best, the best you can ask for. She was happy, always positive, outgoing," said her mother Olga Quinones.

"I just want justice done," said her father, Terence Farrior. "A part of me is gone. They took my baby."

NJ State Police say undercover detectives witnessed an illegal drug transaction involving Heaviside and activated their sirens.











Heaviside allegedly took off and a pursuit ensued, beginning on a side street off Stuyvesant Avenue in Trenton.

State police say the chase went into Hamilton Township, on and off Route 195, but detectives ended the pursuit in the area of White Horse Circle as it began to re-enter Trenton.

After the crash at Broad and Park Avenue, Heaviside tried to flee, but witnesses pointed to his whereabouts.

Authorities say they found bags of heroin in the car. Heaviside was allegedly under influence.




The grief and outrage continues in New Jersey after a 22-year-old woman was hit and killed by a man who had been involved in a police chase.

"They chased him, they were there, we have witnesses," said Quinones. "Troopers were there when impact happened. They did not call off the chase."

State Police say the investigation is ongoing. Surveillance cameras and blacktop boxes are being reviewed, and witnesses are being interviewed.

For now, police say the preliminary findings show the chase was called off 1.1 miles from impact, and protocol was followed.

"Although no type of vengeance will bring my baby back, they will pay," said Quinones. "They will pay.

Two other people in Heaviside's SUV, Lawrence Sears and Harry Remington, were issued possession summons.

San Fransicso supervisor says housing developer knew about Millennium Tower sinking more than they had projected before selling units

There is no paper trail showing why the city allowed tower builder Millennium Partners to sink the high-rise’s foundation piles 80 feet into the landfill, rather than 200 feet down to bedrock.  The tower will “most likely” sink an additional 8 to 15 inches into the landfill beneath it unless steps are taken to stop it.  The building’s 2-inch tilt to the northwest at its base could get worse as well.
A Millennium Gaffe or Millennium Greed? Designed by Handel Architects, engineered by DeSimone Consulting Engineers and constructed by Webcor Builders.

A San Francisco supervisor is launching an investigation into whether there was political influence in getting the Millennium Towers approved saying, the "housing developer knew before they sold their first unit the building was sinking more than they had projected." (KGO-TV)

By Vic Lee
Tuesday, September 13, 2016 06:30PM
SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- A San Francisco supervisor is launching an investigation into whether there was political influence in getting the Millennium Tower approved.

Supervisor Aaron Peskin and his staff reviewed 1,600 pages of documents from the San Francisco Department of Building Inspection and he said there are gaps in those records, specifically documents that addressed the sinking issue. "We're going to find out who knew what and when they knew it," Peskin said.

Those are overriding questions Peskin wants answered about the Millennium Tower's sinking.

It was reported last month that the tallest residential skyscraper in San Francisco, built in 2008, is tilting and sinking.

The towers have tilted two inches and sunk 16 inches so far, much more settlement than developers expected.

After reviewing the documents, Peskin says the rapid settling was no secret and there may have been political interference to get the project done. "The Millennium Corporation, a luxury housing developer, knew before they sold their first unit that the building was sinking more than they had projected," Peskin said.

The records, Peskin says, reveal that city building inspection engineers were concerned early on about the settlement.


A letter addressed to project engineers in February 2009, just a year after the building was completed raises many of those questions.

But the supervisor says the responses to the letter are missing from the records.

Nevertheless, just six months later the city gave the developers the green light. "On August 26, 2009, the city and county issues a final certificate of occupancy for those units we knew or should have known at that time that the building was sinking," Peskin said.

The Millennium Tower Homeowners Association issued a statement saying that they "find troubling the allegation that a public agency sought to keep secret the building's condition."

The homeowners association has launched its own investigation and considering a lawsuit.

The management arm of the Millennium Tower has yet to get back to ABC7 News.


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Sinking Millennium Tower puts building agency on the spot

By Matier & Ross
Updated 5:13 pm, Tuesday, September 13, 2016

The luxury Millennium Tower, completed in 2008, is sinking and the development could result in a lengthy and costly legal battle. Tara Moriarty reports. Media: KTVU

San Francisco building department officials are being called before the Board of Supervisors to explain why the agency allowed the developer of the now-sinking Millennium Tower to avoid anchoring the condominium high-rise to bedrock, and why the city didn’t tell prospective homeowners about the structure’s unusual settling before anyone moved in.

Many of the more than 400 buyers paid several million dollars for their condos in the downtown tower. The homeowners association says it is considering suing the developer and the public agency building the Transbay Transit Center next door, which the Millennium’s owners have blamed for the tower’s problems, over the sinking.

Supervisor Aaron Peskin said Tuesday that the residents had “arguably been defrauded” — and didn’t rule out the city’s own culpability.

“We are going to get to the bottom of how this happened,” Peskin said at a City Hall news conference, complete with giant blow-ups of the 58-story condo tower and a potentially key city document showing that officials with the Department of Building Inspection were aware of the sinking problem in February 2009, two months before the agency gave the go-ahead for people to move into the high-rise at 301 Mission St.








Photo: MLS
Supervisor Aaron Peskin says he believes that the owners of the Millennium Tower knew of the sinking problem before they sold their first unit and that the city is obliged to “make it right.”


Peskin called a supervisors hearing for Sept. 22 at which he said he would ask building officials to testify about the city’s role in approving the Millennium. He also indicated he would explore whether officials had been pressured to approve the tower, though he gave no evidence that was the case.

“I am led to believe there may have been some level of political interference,” Peskin said, without elaborating.

Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom was mayor when the Millennium Tower was proposed and then constructed from 2006 to 2009. “Frankly, I don’t have any idea what he (Peskin) is suggesting,” Newsom said Tuesday. “As a consequence, I can’t respond to it.”

The Millennium has sunk 16 inches since opening in 2009, far more than the 6 inches that the builder initially predicted. A geotechnical engineer hired by the homeowners association warned in May that the tower was still settling at a rate of about an inch a year. He said the tower will “most likely” sink an additional 8 to 15 inches into the landfill beneath it unless steps are taken to stop it.

The building’s 2-inch tilt to the northwest at its base could get worse as well, geotechnical engineer Patrick Shires said.

In a letter to Building Inspection Director Tom Hui in preparation for next week’s hearing, Peskin raised a number of questions about the Millennium’s construction.

He noted that among the 1,600 pages of documents on the project that the agency recently released to the media was a Feb. 2, 2009, letter to the tower’s consulting engineering firm from Raymond Lui, then the building department’s deputy director for plan review services, asking about the tower’s “larger than expected settlements.”


“What are the actual settlements now? What is the rate of settlements? Are the settlements still continuing?” Lui asked in the letter.

There’s no evidence of a response from the firm, DeSimone Consulting Engineers, in the hundreds of documents that the Department of Building Inspection released, Peskin noted.

Stephen DeSimone, the firm’s owner, told The Chronicle that his outfit had responded to the letter, telling the city that “the building was settling in accordance with the predicted settlement.” He added that such a determination “is not an exact science.”

Peskin also said there is no paper trail showing why the city allowed tower builder Millennium Partners to sink the high-rise’s foundation piles 80 feet into the landfill, rather than 200 feet down to bedrock.

Peskin also noted that in 2008, building inspectors repeatedly asked about the tower’s prefabricated frame but that “oddly, the subject of the structural foundation was not covered ... leading me to inquire whether or not there was a peer review of this critical aspect of the project.”

DeSimone told The Chronicle that two independent peer reviews had been performed on the plans, at the city’s insistence, before construction began.

Peskin also pointed to documents showing that in 2008, negotiations “appear to have been ongoing” to “expedite” safety inspections of the tower. “On what basis did the city feel it should expedite the issuance of temporary occupancy permits?” he asked.

Peskin asked that Amy Lee, acting director of the Department of Building Inspection when the Millennium was being constructed, appear at next week’s hearing of the supervisors’ Government Audit and Oversight Committee, along with agency officials Hanson Tom, William Strawn, Daniel Lowrey and Gary Ho. He said City Attorney Dennis Herrera will issue subpoenas if the five don’t agree voluntarily to testify.

Officials with the Department of Building Inspection did not respond to requests for comment Tuesday.

“One thing is incontrovertible — there’s enough evidence that clearly shows Millennium Partners absolutely knew before they sold their first unit in the building that it was sinking,” Peskin said in an interview. “And to that end, I believe the city has a responsibility, when there is a failure to disclose, to make it right for the people who got cheated.”

The tower’s homeowners association said it was notified of the problem only last year, well after the city apparently knew of the unusual rate of sinking.

Peskin declined to say how the city should “make it right” for the condo owners — including whether the city might be party to a lawsuit against the developer and its engineers.

P.J. Johnston, spokesman for Millennium Partners, said that suggesting the firm “asked for or received any inappropriate treatment by city agencies ... is simply outrageous.”

Johnston said the developer told the city in February 2009 that the sinking had surpassed expectations, but that at the time the drop was not severe enough to warrant informing prospective buyers.

“We informed the city that the building had settled beyond 6 inches — to 8 inches — and that it was expected to settle another 2 to 4 inches,” Johnston said. “We also informed the city that the building could absorb that (drop) without any harmful effect.”

Throughout the controversy, Millennium Partners has said the building is structurally sound. The company and the homeowners association are launching a new seismic study to determine how the high-rise would react in an earthquake, Johnston said Tuesday.

“Safety is everyone’s top concern — appropriately so — and it is important to be able to reassure everyone that the building is seismically safe,” Johnston said.

Millennium Partners conducted an earthquake safety study in 2014. Johnston said that nine-month study “found there was no issue of safety,” and he predicted the new study would produce similar findings.

The Millennium Tower is located on landfill, just off the bay’s original shoreline. It sits on a concrete platform, with piles that were driven 80 feet into dense sand, but well short of bedrock.

Johnston said the sinking had “leveled off” when the construction was completed in 2009 — but started up again when digging began for the new Transbay Transit Center going up across the street.

The Transbay Joint Powers Authority, the public agency constructing the transit center, has denied causing the problem.

Peskin also wants to know whether other downtown high-rises were approved without going to bedrock.

“We have to make policy decisions as to whether or not we are going to allow these kind of friction piling systems under very heavy, very tall buildings,” he said.

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A brief history of the sinking Millennium Tower
From star athletes to a bonkers penthouse, a look back at the luxury tower currently in crisis
By Brock Keeling Aug 1, 2016, 12:22p


Before it made headlines for rapidly sinking into the earth, the tony Millennium Tower was known as a gorgeous bellwether of the Yerba Buena neighborhood’s refocus on growth and unbridled luxury. Sleek and cool, it’s widely considered a far more aesthetically thoughtful structure compared to its residential counterparts—e.g., One Rincon Hill, the Infinity Towers, just to name two.

Surrounded by Mission, Fremont, and Beale Streets, the skyscraper was finished in 2009 and is currently the tallest building in San Francisco to include residences. Though described as 60 floors, it is technically only 58 (the 13th and 44th floors are missing due to, ironically enough, superstition).

Designed by Handel Architects, and engineered by DeSimone Consulting Engineers and constructed by Webcor Builders, it’s also home to Michael Mina’s lauded RN74 restaurant. Millenium Tower construction, 2008. Photo: David Werner

In 2010, Dan Goodwin (a.k.a. Skyscraper Man) scaled the exterior in order to draw light to fire safety (and himself). He was arrested shortly after the stunt.

Also in 2010, the powers that be reportedly noticed that the Millennium had started to sink—to the tune of 10 inches. While the effects of gravitational pull are normal for any high-rise, this amount of drop, it seems, is not normal. (For comparison, the Petronas Twin Towers in Malaysia, formerly the tallest buildings in the world, sank only a half inch since their 1998 completion.) View from the $9.45 million penthouse. Photo via Jacob Elliott

Over the years, a handful of local notables have called 301 Mission home. Two years ago, 49ers icon Joe Montana sold his pad in the blue-grey building. And earlier this year, a noted San Francisco Giant purchased one of the property’s swankiest condos for a cool $4.25 million.

While each unit can fetch anywhere from $1.5 - $5 million, the penthouses are sights to behold, outshining the lower units. This over-the-top two-bedroom stunner hit the market in 2015 for $9.45 million. And Silicon Valley bigwig Tom Perkins’ place has become the stuff of ostentatious legend.


Currently, the city’s most expensive one-bedroom is located inside the troubled structure, asking a whopping $3.8 million.

As for today’s breaking news, it’s not only bound to have an effect on nearby towers nearing completion—the ultra-luxe 181 Fremont, which we should point out is drilled 260 feet into the bedrock—but will have two neighbors battling it out for years.

According to today’s story in the Chronicle, "The Millennium's engineers anchored the building over a thick concrete slab with piles driven roughly 80 feet into dense sand" as opposed to drilling piles into more secure bedrock, which was a cost-cutting measure.

Yet according to the Millennium, new Transit Center construction is to blame.


With the Millennium Partners and the Transbay Center fighting each other in a game of blame-placing, this Leaning Tower of Yerba Buena will turn into a Hatfield-and-McCoy San Francisco real estate battle for the ages.

Alcohol, reckless driving possible factors in crash that killed 1, injured 2 on I-85 in Orange County, NC

A deadly three-vehicle wreck killed one person in Orange County on Tuesday.

Tuesday, September 13, 2016 11:19PM
ORANGE COUNTY, NC (WTVD) -- Alcohol may have been a factor in a deadly three-vehicle wreck in Orange County on I-85 southbound near mile marker 165 Tuesday afternoon.

It happened about 4:15 p.m. Tuesday, when a passenger van, with a driver and front-seat passenger, ran off the right shoulder on I-85 south and struck the rear of a tractor trailer, which was stationary at the time. The van then continued on where it collided into a Toyota pickup, causing the pickup to overturn.

Chopper 11HD was overhead as authorities were on the scene. The silver pickup could be seen in the road, on its side.

The front-seat passenger in the van was killed. Both the driver of the van and Toyota pickup truck were taken to Duke with non-life threatening injuries.

Witnesses told state troopers that before the crash, the van's driver was being careless and reckless. Investigators said they believe that alcohol was a factor in the wreck and charges are pending against the driver of the van.

The identities of the people involved, including the person killed, have not been released by state troopers.

The investigation is ongoing.



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One person was killed in a wreck near mile marker 165
I-85 southbound remained shut down and traffic was backed up between Durham and Hillsborough for hours.

The left lane reopened about 10 p.m. The right lane reopened about 10:45 p.m. Traffic continued to move slowly.

Troopers were working late to finish analyzing the scene and remove the vehicles and debris from the roadway.