The Treatment of Wastewater From
Petroleum Barge Cleaning Facilities
CHARLES A. STRYKER, Design Engineer
Wilson & Co. Engineers & Architects
Salina, Kansas 67401
JOHN E. BALL, Associate Professor
Civil Engineering Department
Texas A&M University
College Station, Texas 77843
INTRODUCTION
Barge transportation in coastal and inland waterways is a well established industry. It
is expected that the market for this type of business will grow. As an example, in 1962, the
coastal and inland barge traffic transported 630 million short tons while in 1972, the total
had increased by 33 percent to 840 million short tons (1).
Occasional maintenance is required for barges to comply with industry and
government standards. Several companies have developed specializations in this area of
repairing, rebuilding, and preparing barges for inspection and cleaning barges for cargo
changes. This industry must remove residual products from barge compartments to prevent
hazards to employees maintaining and cleaning the barges, and to avoid contamination of
new products. Wastewaters generated during the cleaning phase contain some residual
products. Because of increased wastewater control by governmental agencies, information
has been needed by the industry to characterize the wastewater from barge cleaning
operations and to determine appropriate treatment methods. However, there has been little
information in the literature concerning barge cleaning operations, wastewater
characteristics generated, or wastewater treatment methods.
The study was limited geographically to the Texas Gulf Coast, and in particular the
Houston-Port Arthur area, with specific objectives to: 1) Develop a comparison of
wastewater characteristics generated by five typical barge cleaning companies; 2) Conduct
treatability studies on the wastewater from one of the five barge cleaning companies; and 3)
Apply results of the tests to the construction of a treatment system for the selected company.
The smaller, privately owned barge servicing companies whose main business is
centered on independent contract barge companies were investigated in this study. The
Houston-Port Arthur barge business is closely related to the petrochemical industry. The
barge service companies studied heavily catered to barges whose products were of
petroleum derivatives.
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