Coast Guard escorts vessel to Port of Longview; places it under 24 hour-guardActing on a tip-off, armed U.S. Coast Guard personnel boarded a foreign cargo ship after it crossed the Columbia River Bar and sailed past Astoria.

Nothing suspicious was found Friday afternoon, but the freighter is under 24-hour guard today at the Port of Longview, Wash., with crew members forbidden from going ashore.

The Coast Guard escorted the vessel to port and put it under constant security. The quarantine will be maintained until the Athena departs for Australia, either Wednesday or Thursday.

“We were not expecting to find anything,” Lt. Cmdr. Glynn Smith, the Coast Guard’s public affairs officer for the Pacific area, said Saturday by telephone from his office in Alameda, Calif.

The search was routine, according to the Coast Guard, but Longview officials said the security crackdown is the most intense at the port since security measures were increased after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

“We did have information on the vessel,” Smith said. “You don’t know if that’s good or bad. The prudent thing is to provide security for the vessel so they can come in and do their business and depart the U.S. without any problems.”

Smith said the measures are precautionary; there’s no active threat.

The Coast Guard brought in two boats from Seattle’s maritime safety security team. A Customs and Borders Protection agent is manning the pier to prevent anyone from boarding the ship, and three security officers will stay onboard until the Athena departs. At least one guard vessel was mounted with a heavy machine gun.

The Athena last docked in Pusan, South Korea. Its destination was the Port of Longview’s Berth 5 to pick up 26,150 metric tons of calcide petroleum coke, a byproduct of the oil refining process, port spokeswoman Marie Wise said.

The product, which is shipped to the port via rail from a British Petroleum refinery in Cherry Point, Wash., is used in the aluminum smelting process and typically is exported to Brazil, Australia and other countries, she said.

The Coast Guard said the ship is sailing under a Bahamian flag, although the Port of Longview listed the Athena as flying Greek colors.

The Longview Daily News contributed to this story