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OmahaRiverFront.com
- RIVER NEWS - UPDATE
Boaters sprayed by crop duster
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Wednesday
October 22, 2001
By Nancy Neurohr |
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This information
was released by The Associated Press
 he
towboat Julia Woods was sprayed with an unknown white
substance when it was approximately 30 miles south of Helena, Ark.,
near the entrance to Sunflower Lake.
The plane appeared to release the spray on purpose, said Kent
Buckley, director of the Bolivar County, Miss., Emergency
Management Agency, because it then circled around to spray a
pleasure boat. Authorities were hoping to find the pleasure boaters
or anyone else who may have seen the plane and could help identify
it, Buckley told MSNBC.com.
The Coast Guard, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Centers
for Disease Control and the Federal Bureau of Investigation are all
looking into the matter.
"This was a deliberate act by a crop duster - this was no
accident," Buckley said.
Authorities, including President Bush, have warned of the
possibility that crop dusters could be used to propagate biological
or chemical weapons, but authorities have not said they believe
that to be the case in Friday's incident.
The Environmental Protection Agency was testing the sprayed
substance, Buckley said. He did not know when the results would be
available.
A spokeswoman for the state health department, NancyKay Wessman,
said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has asked the
Mississippi Department of Health to test the unknown substance.
Crew members aboard the towboat have reported no health problems,
but were given the drug Cipro as a precaution, officials said. The
antibiotic is used to treat a number of diseases, including
anthrax.
Buckley said officials suspect the substance sprayed was sodium
chlorate, used to defoliate cotton crops. Buckley said that sodium
chlorate is like salt water and is not dangerous.
It was unclear how many people were on the tugboat and pleasure
boat, or if any of the crews were on deck when the plane passed
over, he added.
A spokesman at Mid South Towing of Metropolis, Ill., the company
that owns the towboat, referred calls to the Coast Guard in
Memphis.
After the incident, the towboat docked in Rosedale, Miss., Buckley
said. But by 7:45 a.m. Monday (8:45 a.m. ET), the Julia Woods was
once again under way and headed downriver to Vicksburg, Miss.,
where the crew was to speak with FBI investigators, an official at
the Coast Guard's marine safety office in Memphis said in an
interview.
FBI spokeswoman Deborah Madden said the Bureau would not comment on
the incident, because it is the subject of an ongoing
investigation.
He could not say what was being carried aboard the barges.
"The FBI is the lead federal agency for the investigation into
the circumstances surrounding this incident," a Coast Guard
statement said. "The Coast Guard is working closely with
various local and state officials as well."
"The Coast Guard remains very vigilant of the mission of
Homeland Defense and asks that mariners continue to remain vigilant
as well," the statement said. |
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