American Waterways Operators (AWO): Navigating to Zero – October 2024

New Webinar Series: Powering the Future: Sustainable Solutions for Maritime Operations

This winter, AWO is hosting an informative and dynamic three-installment webinar series on sustainability topics, with something for every company’s sustainability journey. The sessions will cover sustainability planning, efficiency, and innovation. Join us for one or all at these dates and times:

1. Crafting a Strong ESG Plan: Navigating Toward Sustainability: Dec 3, 2:00 pm ESTLearn how to develop and refine a tailored Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) plan that aligns with industry standards and demonstrates your company’s commitment to responsible business practices.
2. Efficiency Unlocked: Fuel Tracking and Data-Driven Optimization: Jan 9, 2:00 pm ESTDive into how tracking fuel usage and leveraging data-driven insights can optimize performance, lower costs, and enhance sustainability efforts.
3. The Integration of Fuel Cells and Batteries to Power the Future: Jan 28, 2:00 pm ESTExplore the mechanics of hybrid propulsion systems and discover how fuel cells and batteries can work together to power vessels more efficiently, reducing emissions and cutting operational costs.

The goal of the series is to help members address their environmental impact in various ways as part of our ongoing work to support continuous improvement in safety and sustainability, in line with a key recommendation of AWO’s CEO Sustainability Task Force to support member companies in their individual approaches to optimizing sustainable transportation. Both the live webinars and recordings, which will be posted in the AWO Resource Library, are open to all members. To register, please navigate to the AWO Events Page or contact Caitlin Clark. For more information, contact Michael Breslin.

Harness The Power of Habit Webinar: Jan 7th at 2:00 pm EST

Start your new year off on the right foot by joining AWO for a webinar hosted by Sharon Lipinski, the Habit Superhero. Sharon will lead a conversation on how to leverage cutting-edge neural science to ensure your New Year’s Resolution sticks. Whether your goal is exercising, eating healthier, getting organized, or being more productive, you’ll learn a 3-step system for reliably changing your behavior and use these strategies to create a new habit on the spot! Registration will go live on the AWO events page in the near future. For more information, contact Michael Breslin.

AWO Resources Library: NEW Safety Resources Available

NEAR MISS: Condemned Mooring Fittings on Dock

Line handlers tied off lines on condemned fittings while tying up a barge at a facility. A call for Stop Work and a discussion between vessel and shore workers resulted in tying off to proper dock fittings without incident. Full details: AWO Resources: Condemned Mooring Fittings on Dock

NEAR MISS: Danger From Falling Cargo

A tankerman conducting a bunkering operation was nearly struck by falling gear from a ship while taking cargo samples. The gear was improperly stowed by the ship’s crew, posing a significant safety hazard. A policy was enacted to prevent future incidents. Full details: AWO Resources: Danger from Falling Cargo Gear

Your near misses help prevent future incidents. It is easy to share them by using the AWO High Value Near Miss Form or emailing safety@americanwaterways.com. All identifying details are removed from submitted events. For more information, contact Michael Breslin.

Coast Guard Publishes Findings of Concern

The Coast Guard publishes “Findings of Concern” to alert stakeholders about safety risks discovered during incident investigations. These findings do not require action but rather are intended to encourage voluntary safety measures or adherence to existing regulations. Unlike urgent Safety Alerts that require immediate industry attention, Findings of Concern serve as lessons that should be applied in a systematic manner to prevent similar incidents in the future. Full finding reports, with all recommendations and casual factors included, can be found on the Coast Guard’s website.

• Report 008-24: While a towboat was shuttling two vehicles across the Mississippi using a deck barge on the hip, one vehicle rolled backwards off the barge into the water. Recommendations included: install barriers; provide safety orientation to all passengers; use tire chocks.
• Report 007-24: A cargo vessel collided with an anchored recreational vessel that the crew was unable to see from the line of sight of the wheelhouse. Recommendations included: Evaluate line of sight prior to getting underway and use a lookout for blind spots.
• Report 004-24: A towing vessel struck ground on the Atchafalaya River while following a years-old track line on its Electronic Chart Display System that was made shortly after the channel was dredged. Recommendations included: Schedule regular track line updates using current Light Lists, Marine Safety Information Bulletins, and Local Notices to Mariners.

AWO to Sponsor NSC Waterborne Transportation Group Meeting in New Orleans

AWO is sponsoring the Fall meeting of the National Safety Council’s (NSC) Waterborne Transportation Group at the Port of New Orleans during this year’s WorkBoat Show on November 12 and 13. The event will feature a presentation from AWO’s Recreational Boater Safety Working Group on multi-use waterways safety in addition to presentations on topics including human and organizational performance, MARAD’s Safe MTS near miss collection program, maritime firefighting, process safety, PPE, training, and more!

Registration and details are available on the NSC’s website. Please contact Michael Breslin for more information about AWO’s participation.

American Waterways HERO Award — Nominate Your Crew for Heroic Acts

Even though marine transportation is the safest mode of freight transportation and our mariners work tirelessly to protect our waterways, emergencies still happen. In these critical moments, crews demonstrate outstanding commitment to safety through their first response and rescue efforts.

The American Waterways Honor & Excellence in Rescue Operations (HERO) Award honors member company employees for their selflessness, skill, and bravery during emergencies on our waterways.  Qualifying acts include rescuing mariners and others from the water, responding to medical emergencies, and other heroic actions.

To nominate your crew’s efforts, fill out this simple form at https://www.americanwaterways.com/hero-award.

Awardees are recognized at each Winter and Summer Safety Committee Meeting, where they are invited to bring their families to join us in person to receive their awards, which include a certificate for each vessel involved, a HERO Award Coin for each mariner, and a complimentary one-year marine license and liability insurance policy offered by 360 Coverage Pros & Berkley Offshore.

Congratulations to this month’s recipients of the American Waterways HERO Award!

The next HERO Award Ceremony will occur at the AWO Winter Safety and Combined Regions Annual Meeting in Nashville, TN, on February 18-20, 2025. Details and agenda will be posted on the AWO Events webpage. For more information, contact Michael Breslin.

Maritime Administration Publishes Fall Safety Corner

MARAD recently published the Fall 2024 edition of its quarterly Safety Corner, featuring insights on the importance of preparing for cold weather, tips to prevent GPS signal interference, a summary of a tugboat incident attributed to pilot fatigue, and information on a navigation near-miss investigation conducted by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB), highlighting the importance of maintaining a redundant GPS system with separate inputs.

Sign up for alerts on the MARAD website or read the full MARAD Fall Safety Corner in AWO’s Resource Library. For questions, please email Michael Breslin.

NTSB Publishes Two Towing Vessel Investigation Reports

• MIR 24-32: Contact of Barge San Juan-Jax Bridge with Pier | Report date: 10-8-2024 On June 8, 2023 at 2130 local time, a freight barge contacted the Army Terminal Pier in Cataño, Puerto Rico, while the ocean tug, Signet Thunder, and three assist tugs attempted to moor the barge. There were no injuries and no pollution. Miscommunication between the vessel and dock was identified as a causal factor.
• MIR 24-31: Engine Room Fire Aboard Yacht Savage | Report date: 10-2-2024 On March 8, 2024 at 0330 local time, a fire ignited in the engine room of the yacht Savage near Cape Henry, Virginia. The captain estimated just three minutes elapsed between the first report of fire and the three crewmembers abandoning the boat, jumping into the 50-degree water with immersion suits “about 80%” of the way on. The $600,000 vessel was a total loss. While the NTSB could not identify the exact source of the fire, the captain thought the fire was caused by material contacting the starboard engine’s exhaust.

Full reports are available here.

Quiet Sound Begins 2024-2025 Puget Sound/Admiralty Inlet Voluntary Slowdown

Quiet Sound launched its 2024-2025 voluntary vessel slowdown in Puget Sound and Admiralty Inlet to protect endangered Southern Resident killer whales confirmed to be in the area. The initiative took effect on October 6 and will run through January 12, 2025. During this time, vessels are asked to reduce their speed to limit underwater noise, which disrupts the killer whale population’s ability to hunt and communicate.

Quiet Sound reported that last season’s slowdown contributed to a noise intensity reduction of 50% in key habitats, as measured by Quiet Sound’s underwater hydrophone system and AIS data.

A map of the area is pictured here and available on the Quiet Sound website. For information, visit https://quietsound.org or email info@quietsound.org.

AWO’s Moveable Bridge Quality Action Team Needs Your Input!

AWO’s Moveable Bridge Quality Action Team is working with the Coast Guard to prevent bridge incidents by investigating and documenting issues encountered by mariners when calling or transiting moveable bridges. We are collecting information about bridge-related problems, including late bridge openings, communication issues, inoperable lights, and other issues that affect safe navigation.

Please send event reports that match the above criteria to AWO using the AWO Bridge Event Reporting Form or by emailing bridges@americanwaterways.com. Please ensure all emails include (at a minimum):

• The bridge name and location
• Time and date of the incident
• Tow and vessel configuration and dimensions
• Any other relevant data you can share, including environmental factors, such as wind, fog, rain, or ice; river level or tide and current information; equipment issues, such as a faulty radio or missing light; and any other factors that may have impacted the vessel’s ability to make safe passage through the bridge.

To learn more about this effort, please contact Liam Morcroft.

SafeMTS Invites the Maritime Industry to Stop Accidents Before They Happen

The MARAD SafeMTS program is a confidential platform open to the U.S. Maritime Industry which allows participants to record near misses using a standardized and secure entry form. Contributors are able to analyze trends and share lessons learned before an injury, fatality, or other incident occurs. The program was created by MARAD in partnership with the Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) and utilizes the Confidential Information Protection and Statistical Efficiency Act (CIPSEA) to provide crucial data security and anonymity protections that prevent regulators, law enforcement, and other parties from accessing any identifying information submitted to the system.

A pilot report was released in January 2024 that covered the first several years of data collection efforts and reporting. Following program updates this summer, MARAD is now seeking additional industry partners to grow the database and utility of the program. To learn more, visit this link or email SafeMTS@dot.gov. For questions, please email Michael Breslin.

Safety Professional Spotlight

Chris Law is the SVP Marine Risk Engineering & Loss Control, Aon US National Marine Practice

Your work at AON brings you into contact with many different organizations. In your experience, what impact does a strong safety culture have on an organization’s success? Can you share any examples — good, bad, or otherwise?

Strong safety culture is such an important component of organizational success in many ways, and particularly in any industry where there is an exposure to physical operational risk like the towing industry. In terms of impact on organizational success, a strong safety culture drives stronger safety performance and reduced lost time, which leads to an organization becoming a more attractive insurance risk, a more attractive business/trading partner, and a more attractive place to work. The latter can also be significant in solving for the challenge of attracting and retaining top crews/talent.

A great example of strong safety culture is an organization where all employees are empowered through supported accountability to not just exercise stop work authority on discovery of an unsafe condition or observing unsafe behavior, but to take ownership and resolve it. In other words, employees proactively correct the condition or behavior, as a matter of standard operation, or “the way we do business.”  It requires behavioral assertiveness and that comes from employees understanding that safety is fundamental to everything the organization does and is supported from C-Suite down to the deck plate level.

What are some of the safety-related challenges your customers and partners face today, and what actions can safety managers take now to address these challenges?

I’ll focus on two: emerging technology and crewing/talent retention. But there are many more.

We’re in an era of rapidly emerging technologies, and while I am quite bullish on the potential positive safety impacts, they also come with challenges. New technology needs the training to go with it, and of course, the establishment of back-up operational and procedural redundancies should the technology fail. Ultimately, well-trained, skilled, and prepared employees are still the most important link in the safety success chain.

But considering the human element is so often an identified incident causal factor, some emerging technology applications have real potential for positive safety impact. For example, remote or AI technology that eliminates personnel exposure to hazards, provides data-based decision support during critical/emergency navigation operations, removes need for personnel on watch to perform fatigue-inducing tasks, or that can identify real-time actionable near-miss safety intervention opportunities are attractive propositions.

With any new technology, it is critical for safety managers to risk-assess the technology so as to understand use intent, capability limits, whether new risks are introduced (and new controls required), new training needs, and required updates to associated operations, safety and training policies.

Secondly, crewing (and hiring generally) remains a challenge across maritime. But linking this back to the first question, we have real-world client examples of strong organizational safety culture and performance positively impacting both attraction and retention of skilled and behaviorally safe talent. From a safety manager’s perspective, the challenge is ensuring that your organization’s core safety values and culture are embedded early on from first-hire, and that often requires particular attention and focus on those new-hires for at least the first 12 months.

You have been highly successful in your career! Can you share how you came to work in marine risk and any advice you have for someone considering the maritime transportation industry as a career?

Candidly, marine risk engineering and loss control is not a career path I sought out! After graduating with a naval architecture degree, I spent 4 years at a shipyard in the UK which was also my first involvement in operational safety. While the shipyard was a UK Navy nuclear licensed facility with an extremely strict regulated process and engineering controls, otherwise it was in a more developmental, evolving phase of its safety culture journey.

Relocating to the US in 2010 as a marine surveyor/engineering consultant, I built vessel and maritime operations experience through investigating vessel and dock damages, crew injuries, and cargo damages, providing loss prevention surveys, and performing salvage of naval architecture. I also took advantage of safety and accident investigation training opportunities whenever I could.

In 2016 I came shoreside to manage marine loss control programs for a commercial insurer, which for me was key to understanding insurers’ perspectives on safety when underwriting marine risks. Since joining Aon in 2019, this collective experience (and a forward-thinking management team!) has allowed me to be a part of building marine risk engineering capability within our US marine broking practice, which has been a tremendous career path evolution I did not see coming 20 years ago!

My advice to others? I’m not sure there has been a more exciting time to be in maritime and in maritime risk/safety management. It is a time of rapid technology development and emerging supply chain opportunity and risks, within the context of the vital importance of safe and sustainable operation and maintenance of our marine transportation and infrastructure.

So dive in, treat all experience as good experience, be open, ask questions, and contribute – it will be a rewarding voyage!

SSRP Program Updates – 3rd Quarter Data is Due

AWO recently improved a valuable resource for our members by upgrading the AWO Safety Statistics Reporting Program (SSRP). The upgrade significantly improved many aspects of the SSRP, including, but not limited to:

• Reduced download speeds from several minutes to seconds.
• Added severity matrices that provide members with a tool to segregate critical and less severe injuries.
• Clarified terminology to align injury classification definitions with USCG regulations.
• Added tracker that displays the number of contributing companies for each data point on SSRP report.

All AWO members have access to the SSRP program as a benefit of membership, and carrier members are strongly encouraged to enter data on a quarterly basis as the value of the program is directly tied to the rate of participation. More participation means better representation of the true incident statistics of our member companies.

Third Quarter SSRP data is due by October 31. If you have questions, issues, or suggestions for program improvement, please email safety@americanwaterways.com.

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