Yet another oil spill in San Francisco Bay, this one not caused by an inattentive captain or pilot on a moving vessel — but inattentiveness nonetheless.  The Dubai Star was being fueled from a fuel barge when ¨mechanical failure¨ allowed from 400 to several thousand gallons of thick, black bunker fuel to leak into the bay.  The slick was three miles long by Friday night and Alameda beaches have been closed because of the blobs appearing on them.

Mechanical failure can cover a host of causes from improperly tightened couplings to weakened hoses — all of which come down to human failure, either in procedures or in execution of those procedures.  Following that was the four hour delay in getting booms around the ship to contain the spill.  I don’t know what procedures are in place for fuel transfers in the Bay.  I would think that, as at airports when planes come in to land, emergency gear is at the ready.  Response time is measured in minutes, not in half-hours.  An investigation will ensue and lessons taken but the lessons of the Cosco Busan are barely two years old.  Have they been applied; are all those on the books enorced, or do haste and bottom lines rule the day?

Bird life:

With the rising tide Sunday morning, the oily globs were once again floating on the surface of the water. Some wet globs remained scattered up the sand from the highest tide points the night before.

California Department of Fish and Game and Oiled Wildlife Care Network personnel, wrapped to the necks in protective clothing were heading out for the morning to collect birds affected by the spill. Department representatives advised that approximately nine teams of two persons each were covering the beach and were supported by boat teams searching for birds still out in the water.

They described the previous day of finding Grebes and Coots which were little more than oily blobs with beaks and webbed feet sticking out.  The oily coating robs the birds’ feathers of its waterproofing and insulating qualities. The waterlogged birds can literally drown, although the more common effect is for them to become cold from the loss of insulation and lose their normal feeding and watering habits.

Examiner

Protective Measures

Friends of the Earth also called for the enactment of protective measures for San Francisco Bay similar to those in Washington state’s Puget Sound after numerous bunker fuel spills into those waters.

“Vessels should be required to set out protective booms prior to the transfer of fuel while anchored in order to minimize the spread of spills if they happen and to provide advance notice of this type of fueling in order to allow for a more rapid response in case of a spill,” Keever said.

World Wire

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