A mysterious black dust coats boats and the water at the Gulfport Harbor. What is it?

A mysterious black dust circulating in the air and water near the Gulfport Harbor has created a nuisance for boat captains and others, with some worried it may be an environmental hazard or a risk to their businesses.

In the last year, charter captains began experiencing an unsettling phenomenon on days when a group of 15 tall silos located at the Port of Gulfport were being loaded. Chemours, formerly DuPont, leases the silos from the port and stores materials transported by sea for its manufacturing plant in DeLisle.

If the wind was blowing in the right direction on days when materials were being put into the silos on a conveyor belt, their boats were covered in a fine black dust, staining the sides of their vessels. The particles would also drift and land on the water in the harbor.

The harbor is home to a number of charter fishing businesses, many of which moved there after 2020’s Hurricane Zeta displaced them from the harbor in Long Beach. These charter boats are available for day trips and captained by local fishermen, who often take their customers to fish near the area where the silos are loaded.

The black dust could potentially affect tours, said Bill Hancock, captain of Reel Outlaw Charters.

“It’s so fine, it has the consistency of talcum powder, so it finds every little crack and crevice,” Hancock said. He has had to pressure-wash his boat to remove the stains. It also gets in his clothes and shoes.

It’s not just the charter boats that are affected by the dust. Ship Island Excursions, a popular Coast cruise company, also docks at the Port of Gulfport. Spokesperson Ronnie Wentzell said he has seen the dust on their boats, comparing it to when a vehicle gets dirty when driving down a dirt road.

What is coke dust?

After it started appearing, the charter fishermen began speculating about what the dust might be, and whether it was hazardous to them or the fish.

“Everybody started talking about it. Everybody thought it was something different,” said Brian Ware, captain of Fish Assassin Saltwater Charters.

Locals gave their own guesses after D’Laun Ball, an activist and avid fisherman, posted photos to the Bayou View Facebook group. They thought it could be lignite, ilmenite ore, titanium dioxide or coke dust.

Chemours confirmed to the Sun Herald that the latter is correct.

Chemours said in a statement that there was a recent occasion when “a small amount of the substance settled on top of the water and nearby marine craft” while a barge was unloading calcined petroleum coke.

The carbon product used by Chemours to manufacture titanium dioxide, a widely used white pigment.

Petroleum coke, or petcoke, is a byproduct of oil that is produced in the refining process.

“The substance is non-hazardous and is not known to cause adverse effects from contact,” Chemours said in the statement. “We are investigating how the dusting occurred, what wind conditions may have been at the time of unloading and what additional steps may be needed to minimize the potential for dust for future shipments.”

Chemours’ spokesperson Lisa Randall also told the Sun Herald that the company does not directly oversee the unloading process. It is managed by stevedoring company SSA Marine, which declined to comment after being contacted by the Port Authority.

‘You’re covered in it.’

Fisherman say the circulation of dust was not a one-time incident.

“The whole time it’s going up the conveyor belt, the whole time it’s moving, it’s just going everywhere,” Ware said. “It covers the water for hundreds of yards.”

The charter captains said they were concerned that inhaling the dust might be dangerous.

“Within 30 minutes, your whole boat is covered in it, you’re covered in it,” Ware said. He has had to scrub the dust off his boat with bleach.

Ware, who also works as a helicopter mechanic for the National Guard, is concerned about the effect the dust could have on his business — his customers “don’t want to breathe it,” he said.

On a charter trip last week, a customer told Ware he had just been hospitalized for a COVID infection and was worried about the potential effect of the dust on his lungs.

“As an industry, we do our best to provide a great amount of hospitality to all the travelers and the tourists that come to the Coast,” Hancock said, added the exposing visitors to the industrial dust “would reflect a negative light” on the area.

“Has it caused us a great problem so far? It has not. But on days where it’s really thick, we can’t fish that area,” Hancock said.

For Hancock, who grew up just four blocks from the Gulfport harbor and has lived on the Coast since 1967, taking responsibility for the dust is a question of good citizenship.

“Being a boat owner and a charter captain, I’m charged with being a good steward of the waters and the resources that we have, and I have a sticker on my boat that’s required by the Coast Guard that says that I will not litter or discharge anything into the water.

The Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality is investigating.

This story was originally published March 3, 2022 at 5:50 AM.