Tug Finally Rid of Refuse Scow After 3 Months

A changing of the guard left a pleasure boat to watch over New York’s wandering garbage barge Thursday, and the tug that had been tied to the infamous load of trash for nearly three months headed for home.

The status of the scow Mobro and its 3,184-ton load of garbage remained essentially unchanged--anchored off Brooklyn and barred from docking until a disposal plan is approved by New York state.

Chummer 3, a 42-foot cabin cruiser, took up the watch over Mobro. The 400-horsepower craft, which is not capable of moving the unmanned barge, is to keep it in sight and serve as a contact with the Coast Guard or summon a commercial tugboat company in an emergency, Coast Guard Chief Warrant Officer John Hollis said.

24-Hour Garbage Watch

“Things are going very good so far,” Jimmy Peas, the skipper of Chummer 3, said on his first full day of watching the barge. Peas said he and two crewmen would rotate through two-man, eight-hour watches around the clock.

Skipper Duffy St. Pierre and three crewmen cast the tug Break of Dawn free of the Mobro on Wednesday, 88 days after taking on the load.

St. Pierre said he would make a stop in Key West, Fla., for provisions and break out champagne when he reached his home port of New Orleans.

“We just got fed up with waiting,” said Robert Vosbein, a lawyer for the boat’s owner, Harvey Gulf International Marine Co. of Harvey, La. “We’ve been in touch with city and state officials for two weeks waiting for them to resolve the problems, but they can’t seem to do that.”

The Mobro finished loading commercial trash from Islip, on Long Island, and New York City, on March 22 and pushed south on what became a futile search for a dump in six states and three countries. The barge returned to New York on May 16.