Why do freighters keep getting stuck in Detroit, St. Clair rivers?

On Monday, against a chilly, gray day on the water, a vessel roughly the size of two football fields sat in the Detroit River, unmoving, looming tall and so close that the ice marks on its hull were visible from shore.

It’s the second time in 2023 that a freighter has run aground and gotten stuck in the Detroit River, and the third time this same year that one has been reported to have run aground along the vital shipping channel that connects Lake Erie to Lake Huron and includes the river.

But why does it keep happening? And what’s at stake?

The investigation is ongoing but officials say preliminarily that the groundings reported in May in the Detroit River, in early November on the St. Clair River and this week back near Detroit don’t appear to have some single cause connecting them.

Even as extraordinary as freighters running aground may seem to landlubbers, as ship enthusiast and photographer Andrew Dean Russell, 36, of Taylor, puts it, “It happens.”

Still, that doesn't quench the excitement when it does.

'An amazing sight'

After coming back from Thanksgiving festivities, on Monday, Russell awoke to a slew of messages alerting him that the Portuguese ship the Barbro G was stuck just off Cullen Plaza on the Detroit RiverWalk. As a photographer who goes simply by Andrew Dean, he has more than 9,000 followers on his Facebook page who know to turn to him for images of ships on the Great Lakes.

The ship was reported aground about 7:30 a.m. After waiting until about 3:30 p.m., so as not to get in the way of news stations covering the situation, Russell headed to the riverfront and flew his drone, he said. He ultimately captured images and video of two red and green tugboats nudging the freighter to help free it, though they wouldn’t finish the job until a third one joined the next day.

“It is an amazing sight,” Russell said, who also works as a mechanical inspector on ships and is a frequent user of shipping social media groups. “It appears to be these little, tiny tugboats …  but around these or inside of these little tugs are these humongous engines that have a ton of power and a lot of torque and that really enables them to get a lot of work done.”

It was also a chance for the public to get a closer look at a freighter like this than they would.

All of that is the true excitement behind a grounding; the incident itself isn’t particularly remarkable, said Russell.

How ships run aground

U.S. Coast Guard Lt. j.g. Adeeb Ahmad, Sector Detroit’s public affairs officer, compared the various causes for ships running aground to what can happen on land, on a roadway, when there is a car accident.

“There could be something wrong with the cars, with the vehicle itself,” he said. “There could be a weather factor, there could be human error. If an area has a lot of accidents, it could be the road, or it could be other natural factors that would cause something like this to happen.”

About one ship running aground a year has been more par for the course, he said. Three is, indeed, uncommon.

The Barbro G had been stopped overnight in the Belle Isle anchorage, which is sort of like a parking lot where a ship can rest as needed, Ahmad said. In the morning Monday, the crew noticed their bow thrusters – which aren’t required but can help with maneuvering at docks – were inoperable. Their anchor had also dragged, leaving the ship aground.

Coast Guard investigators have 90 days to finish and file their reports on such incidents, Ahmad said. He also said the agency would require Freedom of Information Act requests for release of those reports.

In the May incident that left the Mark W. Barker aground off of Belle Isle, the Coast Guard at the time pointed to an "electronics malfunction." Information on the St. Clair River incident in early November wasn’t immediately available.

The ships are all associated with different companies or countries.

As for the roadway, or waterway in this case, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for the Detroit region surveys the federal channels from Monroe to Mackinaw City using sonar to test the depths and look for changes, said Brandon Rose, hydrographic survey lead for the corps’ Detroit office. If needed, dredging is done to clear the path.

The Monday incident didn’t take place in one of the federal channels, but Rose’s team will, on request, survey the Belle Isle anchorage to see if there is anything amiss, he said.

Based on conversations with the Coast Guard, he doesn’t expect to find anything of concern, and the officials “tend to our federal channels very well,” he said.

As for the humans in charge of navigating these waterways, everyone is required to have an expert pilot who knows how to navigate this specific area, said Eric Peace, vice president of Lake Carriers' Association. Lake Carriers' Association is a trade association representing the fleet bearing U.S. flags on the Great Lakes.

On U.S. ships, the captains have pilot certifications; foreign ships must bring someone on board when they reach the region, he said.

The aftermath

There are four major areas of concern when a ship runs aground, said Ahmad. The questions are: is everyone safe, is there pollution, is there a loss of cargo, and is there an economic impact with the vessel blocking the path of others.

Those concerns didn’t become realities on Monday, or in the prior incidents. These were incidents of “soft grounding” where ships hit mud or sand and are less likely to be damaged. In a “hard grounding,” where a ship hits something like rocks, damage to the hull raises the question of oil or gas in the water.

However, there could be financial impacts for the companies involved in such incidents.

“Anytime there's a delay in a transit, it costs money,” Peace said.

The Barbro G was headed for Italy with 21,000 tons of wheat. Managers of the freighter could not be reached for comment.

Peace, of the trade association, noted the channel linking Lake Erie and Lake Huron is vital for the flow of materials and said the Great Lakes is the third largest economy in the world. The grain going for export, the iron ore, limestone coming out of Michigan -- it is creating jobs and appliances using the “most economical and most environmentally efficient means of moving bulk material,” he said.

Russell, too, echoed the importance of these vessels, saying that the material going past Detroit makes cars and cell phones.

Of course, that’s not the reason, or at least not the only reason, passionate ship watchers flock to groups like Boatnerd, the Great Lakes Shipping Channel Facebook page and in person for a look at these marvels when one happens to be so close.

“Every ship has a story,” said Russell. “Every ship is from maybe a different place around the lake. You have a lot of people that grew up around the Great Lakes region, they had family that were sailors or maybe helped build the ship … it reminds them of maybe a certain family member to go out and see that ship, or some people just admire the beauty,” Russell said.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: 3 freighters got stuck in Detroit, St. Clair rivers this year. Why?