Work continues to clean up overturned dredge boat

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Witnesses reported Tuesday morning seeing cranes approaching the Tri-State River Products’ dredge boat, which was discovered overturned early Thursday morning.
Since then, the U.S. Coast Guard have been overseeing the investigation into the crash with assistance from the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection.
Jason Croxall, who is instructor for the East Liverpool High School’s Potter News Network, sent a trio of students (Lucas Colvin, David Ansell and Jude Brown) out Tuesday afternoon to grab drone footage and still photographs to memorialize the river salvage company’s deployment of five working cranes to the site of the sunken barge and the capsized dredge.
One of the massive A-frame cranes, nicknamed Big Al, is capable of lifting up to 500 tons. Two of the other cranes are positioned together in hopes of lifting the sunken barge for reclamation.

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Croxall said that he is unsure if they will go about the reclamation by actually cutting it apart or try to save it intact. He believes that may reveal itself over the next few days.
Croxall and his PNN news crew have been keeping a close eye on the operation via drone, as the barge sank on the Ohio River not far from Patterson Field.
No one had been aboard the dredge at the time of the incident nor any reports or personnel casualties reported.
Due to the U.S. Coast Guard and West Virginia’s Department of Environmental Protection not returning calls, no further information was available about what caused the incident or how much fuel may have been spilled into the Ohio River, which many municipalities utilize a water supply.
Typically vessels of this type carry 12,000 gallons of fuel, and containment boons have been deployed to prevent further spread of the thin sheen visible on the water’s surface near the accident site.
