2 RIVER PILOTS FORFEIT FEDERAL LICENSES

Drug Test Showed Positive For Cocaine

The Coast Guard has seized the federal mariner licenses of two river pilots
who tested positive for cocaine in November 2000, the chief New Orleans
investigator for the agency said Thursday.

Malcolm Hingle and Charles Walton, both members of the Crescent River Port
Pilots Association, must complete a 52-week drug counseling program,
undergo random drug testing and be declared drug-free by a specially
trained physician before retrieving their federal licenses.

Hingle and Walton also will be suspended from working as river pilots,
without pay, until their federal licenses are returned. The pilots earn a
target pay rate of about $321,000 a year guiding large foreign ships along
the lower Mississippi River.

The positive drug tests never were reported to the Coast Guard, and local
investigators only learned about them four months ago when they were made
public in a series of articles published by The Times-Picayune.

Hingles and Walton became the second and third pilots to give up their
federal licenses in less than a month.

Two weeks ago, Patrick Van Gale, a member of the New Orleans-Baton Rouge
Steamship Pilots Association, gave up his federal license for a year after
he tested positive for cocaine in December. Gale's state pilot commission
also was suspended and he was taken off the river for a year without pay.

The disciplinary actions against Hingle and Walton came more than a year
after drug tests on hair samples taken from the pilots indicated they had
used cocaine within 90 days of giving the samples. Hingle was tested in
response to an anonymous tip. Walton's test was done after a random
urinalysis showed ambiguous results. Both tests were administered by the
Crescent board of commissioners, a state regulatory body composed of three
Crescent pilots that disciplines Crescent pilots and screens candidates for
joining the group.

At the time of the drug tests, the board suspended both pilots from work
without pay for 90 days and ordered them to complete an intensive
rehabilitation program and undergo weekly drug counseling.

The Crescent board was under no legal obligation to report the test results
to the Coast Guard.

Although positive drug tests from urine samples taken from federally
licensed mariners must be reported to the Coast Guard, positive tests
resulting from hair samples are not covered by the same rules because hair
sampling is not a testing method recognized by the federal Department of
Transportation, which oversees the Coast Guard.

Even so, hair tests are often used by private employers to confirm urine
tests that produce positive or uncertain results. Drug testing experts say
hair samples are less susceptible to tampering and offer a look at a larger
window of time than urine samples.

Local Coast Guard investigators didn't learn of Hingle's and Walton's test
results until early November 2001, when they were made public for the first
time by The Times-Picayune in a four-day series of articles exploring the
ways pilots have abused the state's regulatory system.

"Our investigative work was reading (the Times-Picayune) articles," said
Lt. Cmdr. Andy Norris, senior investigating officer with the Coast Guard
Marine Safety Office New Orleans.

Following an investigation, Hingle and Walton signed settlements with the
Coast Guard last week acknowledging past drug use and agreeing to turn over
their federal licenses until they complete their drug counseling programs.

Each pilot must complete 52 weeks of drug abuse counseling and undergo at
least 12 random drug tests by Feb. 1, 2003. Both will receive credit for
counseling sessions and tests already completed as part of the punishments
previously handed out by the Crescent board.

"We are holding their licenses until they can prove they are cured," Norris
said.

Hingle and Walton will be unable to work as river pilots until their
federal licenses are returned because regulations set by the Crescent board
require members of the Crescent group to maintain federal licenses as a
condition of working.

Neither Hingle nor Walton returned calls seeking comment.

Crescent board attorney Michael Delesdernier said Thursday that both pilots
have completed a large amount of their counseling sessions, although he
could not say exactly how much time they have left. "It's our understanding
that they should be going back to work soon," he said. Under terms of the
Crescent board's disciplinary action, Hingle and Walton returned to work
with full pay after completing a 90-day suspension and attended weekly
counseling sessions until last April, when they began missing sessions
because of vacations and conflicts with their work schedules.

About six weeks later, the Crescent board notified the pilots that they had
violated terms of their probation, which required them to comply fully with
their outpatient recovery programs or lose their state pilot commissions.
But the board said the pilots could keep their jobs if they promised to
make up the missed sessions.

On Thursday, Delesdernier said Hingle and Walton never were actually in
violation of their probation agreement. He said the pilots never were
required to attend consecutive weekly sessions and that the board
overreacted when the pilots missed some of the meetings.

Delesdernier said Hingle and Walton will face extra random drug tests for
the rest of their careers, exceeding the Crescent group's drug testing
policy for all of its other members.

He said the two pilots have responded well to treatment and counseling.
"They have done great. They are good pilots," he said.

Crescent pilots work along the Mississippi River between New Orleans and
Pilottown and the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet. NOBRA pilots work along
the river between New Orleans and Baton Rouge. The Associated Branch
Pilots, or Bar pilots, work along Southwest Pass between Pilottown and the
Gulf of Mexico.

Bar pilots say they routinely test their members for drugs and that no
pilot has failed a test.

Each group operates a state-sanctioned monopoly, and its members are
commissioned by the governor. State law requires most large foreign ships
to hire pilots when sailing along state waterways. Pilots often steer ships
containing dangerous cargo on the Mississippi, considered the most
treacherous commercial waterway in the nation.