Major fuel oil spill in San Francisco Bay!

[Ninong]

At 8:20 a.m. yesterday, a container ship hit one of the Bay Bridge tower bases...

...and spilled a little heavy-duty bunker fuel oil into the Bay. According to the Coast Guard, the spill was only 140 gallons. They stuck with that story until 9 p.m. yesterday.


Alcatraz surrounded by oil.


Oil slick near Angel Island.


Oil slick near Fort Baker.


Oil slick near Aquatic Park.


Rodeo Beach in the Marin Headlands.


Fort Baker cove in Sausalito.

More photos here.

Full article here. Another article here.

Many people in San Francisco took one look at the oily mess and said, "Hey, that's more than 140 gallons!"

More than 12 hours later, the U.S. Coast Guard agreed. They said they were relying on information they received from the ship's owners. The ship's owners told the Coast Guard it was only 140 gallons and the Coast Guard accepted that estimate all day long. They didn't realize it might be larger than that until the local TV stations started showing video taken from their news helicopters showing an oil slick that stretched for several miles.

Finally, after 9 p.m., the Coast Guard released a revised estimate. Instead of 140 gallons, they were now estimating that at least 58,000 gallons of heavy-duty bunker fuel oil had been spilled into San Francisco Bay!!!

The fuel that spilled from a container ship into San Francisco Bay on Wednesday is a "nasty" oil that breaks down slowly, is hard to clean up and could affect marine life for years, environmentalists and oil-spill experts say.

[Ninong]

Update: This article has a lot more details including several video clips.

[Ninong]

This is a very sad situation.

The oil has already reached the Farallon Islands thirty miles offshore. The islands are part of the San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge. And oil has spread more than 40 miles up the coast.

The container ship hit the base of one of the Bay Bridge towers at 8:20 a.m. Wednesday. Fifteen minutes later the ship reported to the Coast Guard that they had spilled 140 gallons of fuel oil into the bay. Within a few hours the local TV stations were broadcasting video taken by their news helicopters showing a huge oil slick spreading for miles. The Coast Guard began investigating the oil slick around 4 p.m. and finally announced around 9 p.m. (more than 12 hours after the accident) that there really was more than 140 gallons that were spilled. The new figure, according to the Coast Guard, was 58,000 gallons.

It's a shame that it took the Coast Guard more than 12 hours to warn San Francisco that an ecological disaster was unfolding. Had the authorities known the true scope of the problem immediately, emergency measures could have been taken when they would have been more effective.

Following is another article in today's SF Chronicle:

Dozens of birds killed, hundreds of thousands threatened by spill

The black oil spreading for miles from the Golden Gate is staining one of the richest wildlife regions on the Pacific Coast and threatening hundreds of thousands of birds as well as marine mammals and fish that feed around San Francisco Bay.

Fuel oil, lighter than crude but heavier than gasoline, can kill birds, fish and other creatures. The 58,000-gallon spill into the delicate mouth of the bay comes at an unfortunate time for migratory birds, such as the 150,000 ducks that have just flown 2,000 miles from Canada's boreal forest to feed over the winter in the bay ecosystem, bird biologists said Thursday.

Dozens of dead and injured birds already have been found around the region, and hundreds more are likely to be spotted before the oil slick is mopped up, officials said.

By late afternoon Thursday, the oil had hit the Farallon Islands, and researchers spotted 20 oiled common murres. At nesting time, in late winter, the Farallones are home to 200,000 common murres, the largest colony south of Alaska, and the seabirds already are starting to arrive.

"This is going to be a mess. We'll see how big a mess," said Cheryl Strong, a biologist at the San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge. The islands are part of the refuge.

Oil washing up on the beaches in San Francisco, Berkeley, Albany, Novato and along the Pacific coast is covering prime feeding grounds for the dozens of species of shorebirds that forage on the edges of the bay. The disaster will remain a deadly threat for months and perhaps years to come, biologists said.

Fish will die if they eat the oil in the water or it gets in their gills, said biologists with state Fish and Game Department.

Harbor seals that come ashore at Point Bonita near the lighthouse under the bridge also are vulnerable to oil, as are Dahl's porpoises and harbor porpoises swimming off Rodeo Beach on the Marin Headlands. Also in danger are California sea lions that could swim through the oil to get to Pier 39, according to the Marine Mammal Center. Furry mammals are particularly vulnerable to spills because the oil interferes with their ability to keep warm. Ingesting the oil and breathing the fumes also can sicken them, particularly the pups.

"It's horrible," said Dr. Frances Gulland, a veterinarian at the Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito who could see the oil washing up Thursday morning on Rodeo Beach. She worries about the immediate and long-term injury to the animals.

"It is shocking that it can happen in the bay under our very eyes," Gulland said.

Off the bay lies an area of almost 6,000 square miles protected as three federal marine sanctuaries - Cordell Bank, Gulf of the Farallones and Monterey Bay. The sanctuaries are home to 36 species of marine mammals, 163 species of birds and five species of sea turtles.

By evening, at least three dozen oiled and dead birds had been picked up at Rodeo, Ocean and Stinson beaches, the Berkeley Marina and other beaches.

Injured birds can die quickly. The oil coats feathers that keep birds warm, causing them to get cold in the chilly bay water. When the birds get out of the water, they stop feeding even though they need a constant supply of food to keep up with their high metabolism. If they preen their feathers, the oil can poison them, said Dr. Mike Ziccardi, director of the Oiled Wildlife Care Network. The program, at UC Davis, organizes the wildlife aid response for the state Department of Fish and Game.

At the International Bird Rescue Research Center in Fairfield, the birds will be warmed and rehydrated, and workers will try to remove the oil using Dawn dishwashing soap.

Most of the birds found Thursday were surf scoters, a species of diving duck. Around 80,000 of the ducks arrive in the Bay Area every year by November, a majority of those wintering on the Pacific Flyway, an ocean feeding stop.

About 80,000 greater and lesser scaups, two other species of diving ducks, also fly here to feed from Canada, arriving at the lowest weight of their life cycle.

"They come here from the pristine boreal forests down to the San Francisco Bay, an incredibly rich marine ecosystem that supports globally important populations of ducks and shorebirds," said Jeff Wells, a biologist with the Boreal Songbird Initiative, a Seattle nonprofit.

"They arrive after a journey of thousands of miles after making it through the Canada frost, passing through British Columbia mountains and then down the entire Pacific Coast from Washington expecting a safe place full of food and spend the winter," he said.

"Then they're fouled by oil and may die on the shores because they can't stay warm and get the oil off their feathers," Wells said.

Hundreds of reports of oiled birds from beaches ringing the bay and coast came into the hot line operated by the Oiled Wildlife Care Network. So many residents used the line to offer volunteer assistance that the network was temporarily shut down in midafternoon.

On Thursday morning, Josiah Clark, a consulting ecologist conducting a preliminary shorebird survey, saw two oiled ducks, a greater scaup and a northern shoveler as far north as Novato.

"We will be living with it for a long while," said Clark, a longtime birder with the Golden Gate Audubon Society.

Jay Holcomb, who leads the bird rehabilitation center in Fairfield, said his group went out Wednesday afternoon after it got the first report of a spill.

"When we got between the Golden Gate and the lighthouse at Point Bonita under the north end of the bridge, we saw a lot of oil in the water. We didn't expect that much oil from what had been reported. And then we knew we were going to see a lot of oiled birds," Holcomb said. [That's because the Coast Guard was still sticking by their original report of only 140 gallons spilled. They began investigating the possibility that it just might be larger than 140 gallons around 4 p.m. and finally announced the new figure of 58,000 gallons at 9 p.m., more than 12 hours after the collision.]

Wildlife at risk

BIRDS

-- Diving ducks such as surf scoters, greater scaups, lesser scaups, buffleheads and ruddy ducks
-- Western, eared and horned grebes
-- Common and red-throated loons
-- Western, California, glaucous and Bonaparte gulls
-- Double-crested, pelagic and Brandt's cormorants
-- Common murres
-- California brown pelican

MARINE MAMMALS

-- Harbor seals
-- California sea lions
-- Dahl's porpoises
-- Harbor porpoises
-- Northern fur seals
-- Humpbacked whales

FISH

-- Anchovies
-- Topsmelt
-- Surfperch
-- Leopard shark
-- Smoothhound shark

[Samper]

This breaks my heart.

[Ninong]

"Why did it take them so long to respond?" complained Mike Herz, founder of the San Francisco Baykeeper organization and chairman of U.S. Friends of the Earth. "Every oil spill I've ever seen has screwups of one kind or another.

"But it looks like they've been unusually slow in responding in this one."

All through the day, the heavy fuel oil that spilled from the container ship Cosco Busan washed up on beaches along the San Francisco and Marin coastlines, leaving purplish sheens on the water and black blobs in the sand. Hundreds of birds coated in thick, gloppy oil were injured or dead.

"It's just heartbreaking," said Sally McFadden, 49-year-old birdwatcher from Larkspur who went to Kirby Cove in the Marin Headlands to help and was shocked when she saw the oil-slathered rocks and sand.

About 9,500 gallons of oil had been contained by Thursday evening, U.S. Coast Guard Capt. William Uberti said. But as he spoke, questions were swirling about his agency's response and whether it could have been quicker.

Oil began leaking into the water after the 65,131-ton, 810-foot-long ship crashed into the base of a tower of the Bay Bridge's western span in heavy fog at about 8:30 a.m. Wednesday. Within an hour, six emergency vessels from the Coast Guard and Marine Spill Response Corp. were on the scene, Uberti said. Yet up until 4 p.m., officials apparently believed only 140 gallons of oil had leaked into the water.

They then learned that the actual amount of the spill was a much more alarming 58,000 gallons, Uberti said. That news was not announced to the public and some local officials until 9 p.m.

"We were kind of busy. ... We were busy figuring this stuff out," Uberti said when asked about the delay.

Democrat Barbara Boxer, chairwoman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, said in a statement that she was "very troubled by the Coast Guard's delay in delivering accurate information to the public and the city of San Francisco. ... Many questions remain as to why it took an entire day to determine the gravity of this spill."

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom promised that the city would take legal action against whoever is responsible for the spill and expressed irritation that his office, like many, learned the true scope of the spill after 9 p.m.

"I'm not saying anyone lied. I'm saying there was wrong information," Newsom said. "It all goes to intent. Was there intent to mislead? That needs to be assessed. There's a lot of finger-pointing right now. ... I'm just concerned about mitigating the damage and cleaning it up and then holding those people responsible."

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is scheduled to visit Fort Mason Friday and get a briefing on the crisis. [Arnold is probably the most eco-friendly Republican in the country. That's one of his good points. He's also a consummate politician.]

The crash was the first time an oceangoing ship had run into the bridge. The structure did not sustain major damage, but the wildlife in the area is in trouble for at least weeks to come.

"It's very discouraging, and it's bad. Birds come here to feed because it's a very rich, a very diverse region," said Jay Holcomb, director of the International Bird Rescue Research Center in Fairfield, the rehabilitation center that eventually will receive all of the recovered oiled birds.

"We know oil spills are horrible. The animals are frightened. We catch what we can. We do the best we can, but we're limited in what we do. It's just sad to see this."

You can read the full article here.

[zhenya]

It's an unbelievable act of stupidity and negligence on the part of the ship's command and crew. To run into a bridge ancor base is beyond my understanding, it is not something that one can;t predict encountering on it;s pass or not know about it;s existence.
I am sure this things are on all of the charts.

[Ninong]

Gene,

They use a harbor pilot to take ships in and out of the bay. The pilot in this case has more than 35 years experience but he evidently has had a few mishaps in the past.

That bridge has been there for 71 years now and this is the very first time it has been hit by an oceangoing vessel. The Port of Oakland is a very big container port. The Port of San Francisco lost most of its freight business decades ago to Oakland. Anyway, thousands and thousands of ships have managed to pass under the Bay Bridge without hitting it up until now.


The Hanjin container ship, Cosco Busan, struck the Bay Bridge tower, at left, on Wednesday. Chronicle photo by Michael Macor


Broken wood can be seen around the tower where the container ship struck the Bay Bridge. Chronicle photo by Brant Ward [Don't let the camera fool you here. Those towers are much farther apart than them seem. The Bay Bridge is a total of 8.5 miles long, 4.5 miles over water. It opened November 12, 1936.]


The Cosco Busan hit the Bay Bridge spilling 58,000 gallons of fuel into San Francisco Bay. Chronicle photo by Kurt Rogers The Cosco Busan hit the tower fender on its port, or left, side - tearing a gash 160 feet long about 10 feet above the water line.


A Coast Guard vessel inspects damage to the 65,131-ton container ship Cosco Busan, which struck the wood, plastic and concrete fender on the second Bay Bridge tower west of Yerba Buena Island. Chronicle photo by Michael Macor

[zhenya]

Unless this pilot was drunk I don't see how he could make this ship strike that tower (if he wasn't turning or making that sort of manuvers).
It's just beyond me.

[Ninong]

To put things into perspective, this view is looking from Yerba Buena Island towards San Francisco. Compare this to the second photo below this one. Notice that the thick concrete pier is not nearly as close to the damaged tower base as it appears in the first photo. The tower that he hit is the second one from Yerba Buena Island.






Here is a better view of that section of the bridge. The damaged tower is the one to the left of the fat concrete pier in this photo (the second tower from the island). This is a view looking from the San Francisco side towards Oakland. The first photo is a view looking from Yerba Buena Island towards San Francisco and it was obviously taken with a telephoto lens from the island.

This is not the section of the bridge that is being rebuilt right now. They're rebuilding the section from the other side of Yerba Buena Island to Oakland. That's the part of the bridge where one of the sections collapsed during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. Anyway, it's costing them billions of dollars to replace the part from the island to Oakland.

This is the first time an oceangoing vessel has hit the Bay Bridge since it was opened Nov. 12, 1936, so I imagine the pilot is going to have a lot of explaining to do.

P.S. -- The distance between the towers is 2,210 feet, and the ship is 131 feet wide.

[Ninong]

Coast Guard says it took too long to announce size of oil spill

(11-09) 14:09 PST San Francisco - -- As oil contaminated more beaches and birds throughout the Bay Area, Coast Guard officials admitted today that they had taken too long to notify the public about the skyrocketing size of the ship-fuel spill but defended their response to the mess.

The admission was driven home by an examination of the federal agency's log of events Wednesday when the container ship Cosco Busan struck the base of a Bay Bridge tower. That log, which The Chronicle obtained today, showed that guard investigators realized at 4:49 p.m. Wednesday that a 58,000 gallons of heavy-duty bunker fuel oil had spilled into the bay - not 140 gallons, as they had reported all day. But the Coast Guard did not say anything publicly until 9 p.m.

"That is unacceptable," Coast Guard Adm. Craig Bone replied when asked about the length of time it took for his agency to announce the magnitude of the spill.

Bone spoke with the reporters today at Fort Mason before Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger arrived to view the catastrophe. Officials from San Francisco to Congress have lambasted the Coast Guard for its response and promised legal action or public hearings on the matter.

"We needed to be better at communicating," Bone said.

Coast Guard knew of big spill hours before warning the public, logs show
The surface of the water in the Berkeley marina is coated in oil on Friday. Chronicle photo by Kurt Rogers


Coast Guard knew of big spill hours before warning the public, logs show
A crew with NRC Environmental Services begins to bag the globs of oil washing ashore at Rodeo Beach in the Marin Headlands. Chronicle photo by Michael Macor

[zhenya]

This is the first time an oceangoing vessel has hit the Bay Bridge since it was opened Nov. 12, 1936, so I imagine the pilot is going to have a lot of explaining to do.

That's what I'm thinking as well, George. With 35 years of experience it is pretty hard to hit an object that is above water line and that size...

[Ninong]

That's what I'm thinking as well, George. With 35 years of experience it is pretty hard to hit an object that is above water line and that size...

He ripped a gash 160-feet long, 10-feet above the water line in the ship's hull.

He ran another ship aground last year and he has been involved in "several mishaps" in the past several years.

P.S. -- Looks like his experience guiding ships in and out of San Francisco Bay is "more than 25 years."

[Ninong]

Pilot's Record Of Mishaps
Man who navigated the Cosco Busan ran a ship aground last year, documents show.


Bar pilot on errant ship had several mishaps in past

Capt. John Cota, the veteran master mariner who was piloting the container ship Cosco Busan when it hit the Bay Bridge on Wednesday, has been involved in a number of ship-handling incidents and was reprimanded last year for an error in judgment when he ran a ship aground, state regulatory documents show.

Cota, 59, has been a bar pilot, guiding ships in and out of San Francisco Bay and its tributaries, for more than 25 years. Many mariners consider him an excellent ship handler.

But he has had four "incidents" involving an investigation by the Board of Pilot Commissioners in the past 14 years and has been "counseled" by pilot commission executives on several other occasions, documents show.

P.S. -- The pilot is complaining that it was an hour and a half after he reported the accident before the first clean-up crews showed up on the scene. He conveniently leaves out the fact that he reported the spill as only 140 gallons. That's not much more than a decent water change. If it had been only 140 gallons, they wouldn't have such a big mess right now.

[Ninong]

Coast Guard on Yerba Buena Island warned pilot before collision he was on a bad course...

...but he immediately radioed back that his instruments showed that he was heading for the center of the span. The distance between the towers is 2,210 feet, the ship is 131 feet wide.

Immediately after the accident, Capt. Peter McIsaac, president of the San Francisco Bar Pilots, boarded a boat and headed for the Cosco Busan, then just off Treasure Island. He said oil was pouring out of a gash in the ship.

"I've never seen oil going into the water like that," he said.

The Coast Guard reported the spill was only 140 gallons and didn't change that figure until more than 12 hours later. The Coast Guard's log of events showed that Coast Guard investigators realized at 4:49 p.m. Wednesday that 58,000 gallons of heavy bunker fuel oil were in the water - not 140 gallons, as they had been reporting all day. But they did not say anything publicly until 8:58 p.m., when they issued a news advisory.

"That is unacceptable," Coast Guard Adm. Craig Bone conceded Friday.

Here.

P.S. -- The 4:49 p.m. time is when the Coast Guard learned from the ship's owners that the true figure was 58,000 gallons and not 140 gallons as they had originally reported. However, the Coast Guard was operating in that mess all day. Couldn't they see that it had to be a lot more than 140 gallons? Why didn't they say early in the morning that the spill appears to be a lot larger than the 140 gallons claimed by the ship's owners? They were asked about the size of the spill all day long and stuck to the 140 gallons.

It wasn't until after the local TV stations started showing video clips of oil slicks all over the bay and spreading up the coast that they started to investigate the size of the spill. Their log shows that they finally learned it was 58,000 gallons at 4:49 p.m. and then they released that information at 8:58 p.m. The Mayor of San Francisco wasn't told until after 9 p.m.

[Ninong]

Cleanup process could go on for years.

As of Friday evening, 20,546 gallons of oil had been mopped up on the beaches and waterways by at least 15 crews on foot and 11 boats rigged up to "skim" the gunk into tanks. Lt. Rob Roberts of the state Fish and Game Department said the cleanup is "going to be awhile. We could be out here weeks, we could be out here months.

"This is a process that may go for years."

He said much of the muck will have dissolved into the water by the end of the weekend and will be beyond containment. The last big oil spill in the bay, a 40,000-gallon mess in 1996, took at least two years to mop up.

The company that owns the ship, mindful of the potential legal storm gathering around it, announced that it is not focusing on blame - for the moment.

"We have stepped up to the plate ... the main concern right now is to get this cleaned up and cooperate with the authorities while they conduct their investigation," said Darrell Wilson, spokesman for Regal Stone Ltd. of Hong Kong.

On the bay, ocean and more than 19 beaches throughout the Bay Area - from Hunters Point to Tomales Bay, 40 miles north - rescue workers and volunteers have now collected 94 oil-soaked birds and taken them to recovery centers. At least 28 birds have been found dead. The total number of injured birds is expected to rise into the hundreds.

Globs of oil have been seen as far west as the Farallon Islands, and sticky sheets of fuel are slopping onto the hulls of boats docked in harbors in San Francisco Bay. The swimming portion of the popular San Francisco Triathlon at Treasure Island, which begins today, has been canceled.

Throughout the day, the strong tides that race out of the Golden Gate tortured Marin County's beaches with coating after coating of oily sludge.

Along Rodeo Beach, two dozen hazardous materials workers in orange suits trudged around the sand shoveling gobs of black goo, mixed with beach sand, and putting it into plastic bags. A Caterpillar tractor toted away huge piles of the bags from the beach.

Sean McLeod, a 41-year-old contractor from Larkspur, came to help out.

"This is my favorite beach," he said. "I come here four times a week. It just kills me to see it like this."

[Ninong]

You can be arrested in California for cleaning up oil on the beach is you don't have "hazardous materials training."

A group of San Francisco surfer activists known as the Surfrider Foundation was urging its members to show up at Ocean Beach with "kitty litter scoops and heavy duty bags." But Addassi said any ordinary citizen who came to the beach would be ordered to stop picking up goop and go home.

It was much the same in Marin County, where Sigward Moser led a 30-person volunteer group - including 20 monks-in-training from the Mill Valley Zen Center - onto Muir Beach on Friday. For his efforts, he was detained and handcuffed.

The little army managed to scoop up nearly 500 bags of gloppy, sandy oil between 2 and 5 p.m. Moser said it was easy duty: "It rolls up like kitty litter, right off the surface of the sand. Went right into the bags with no problem."

They got almost all of the oil they could find - and then a National Park ranger showed up.

"He asked us to leave, and we said we needed to do what we were doing, so he put me in handcuffs," said Moser, a communications consultant. "I told him, 'Well, there was nobody else doing the cleanup before we began,' but he just said I was breaking the law and this is hazardous material that I shouldn't be dealing with."

Moser was cited for two misdemeanors, failure to obey an official order and entry into a restricted area, and released.

Now he has 500 bags of glop in his yard, and he has no idea how to get rid of it.

Official oil cleanup ramps up, frustrated volunteers turned away
Sigward Moser, who was cited Friday for cleaning the oil off the beach, watches the cleanup from his deck. Chronicle photo by Deanne Fitzmaurice



Rich Weideman, spokesman for the Golden Gate National Recreation Area that administers Muir Beach, said he could understand the citizen impulse to help. But, he said, it is to no real avail.

"You have to have hazardous materials training to clean up oil," he said. "And that takes, at a minimum, 24 hours of training time. We do all of our training in-house, so were looking all day for a company that could do that kind of training for people who want to volunteer, but we can't find anyone."

So basically, he said, everyone who wants to help is out of luck.

"We'd love to have people involved, but we have to obey state labor laws," Weideman said.

The oil spill has shut down most beaches around the Bay Area. It also closed Angel Island state park and idled the ferries that serve it.

Meanwhile, the San Francisco Triathlon at Treasure Island became a Bi-athlon when the bay swimming part of the competition was cancelled. Many of the 900 athletes from around the world who hoped to gain points to qualify for the Olympic games were left high and literally dry.

Here.

P.S. -- Several hundred volunteers showed up this morning to help clean up the beaches but they were all turned away. There are now 60 boats and 500 certified hazardous materials cleaner-uppers who probably all work for Halliburton cleaning by the Bay Area's beaches. All of the affected areas are closed to the public and only employees working for authorized contractors are allowed access.

[Ninong]

Oil spill timeline

Here is what unfolded over 15 hours last Wednesday, when a container ship smashed into the base of a Bay Bridge tower and spilled 58,000 gallons of bunker fuel oil into San Francisco Bay:

6 a.m. - Bar pilot Capt. John Cota boards Cosco Busan at berth 55, Oakland Inner Harbor. He decides fog is too thick and waits for it to lift.

About 7:30 - Cota notifies Coast Guard Vessel Traffic Service that fog has lifted and he intends to sail. He tells vessel traffic he intends to use the Delta-Echo span of the Bay Bridge. The ship is assisted by the tug Revolution.

7:30 to 8:20 - The ship's radar failed, says Cota, who decides to rely on an electronic chart. He asks ship's captain to point to center of the D-E span on the electronic chart. Cota gives course and speed for that point.

About 8:20 - Coast Guard advises Cota that ship is off course, is heading southwest, parallel to the bridge. Ship makes a right turn. Lookout on the bow warns that ship is headed for the Delta tower.

8:27 - Ship hits base of Delta tower, tearing a 160-foot-long gash in the freighter's side.

8:30 - Cota reports to vessel traffic service that the ship has hit the bridge tower. Shortly thereafter, ship reports that oil is leaking into the bay.

8:30 - Tidal current heading toward south bay at 2.2 knots.

8:52 - Personnel on pilot boat sent from Pier 9 in San Francisco notice that "a substantial flow of oil" is coming from the ship.

9:03 - The Coast Guard dispatches its first vessel to the scene.

9:46 - Marine Spill Response Corp., a private company tasked with the cleanup, dispatches its first vessel to the scene.

11:00 - Five MSRC skimming boats designed to contain and mop oil are on the scene.

12:15 p.m. - Coast Guard says oil spill is 140 gallons; ship has moved to anchorage south of the Bay Bridge, trailing an oil slick. Coast Guard says it's too foggy to put up aircraft to determine spill size.

12:30 - Tidal current shifts toward Golden Gate at about 2.3 knots.

4:00 - Oil booms set up at Aquatic Park and Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco.

4:49 - Coast Guard realizes the spill is 58,000 gallons.

8:58 - Coast Guard notifies public of true extent of spill.


In an interesting new development, the pilot is reporting that the ship's radar failed and he was relying on an electronic chart. He also claims that the ship's captain pointed the ship in the wrong direction. According to the pilot, they were headed straight for the tower instead of the middle of the span.

Moments before the collision, the lookout rang a warning bell and shouted out in Chinese that they were headed straight for the tower. The ship was turned hard right avoiding hitting the tower straight on but it struck a glancing blow that ripped a long gash in its side, spilling 58,000 gallons of fuel oil into the bay.

Minutes before the collision, the Coast Guard warned the ship's pilot that he was on a bad heading but he replied that he was on the correct heading. In fact, he was headed straight for the tower instead of the center of the span and he blames that on the ship's captain for pointing to the wrong spot on the electronic chart. There is a transponder in the center of the span that should have communicated with the ship's electronic chart and its radar but the ship's pilot is now blaming the ship's Chinese captain for pointing him in the wrong direction.

Sounds like it might have been a communications problem? I wonder how fluent the captain is in English?

P.S. -- Another interesting item: The San Francisco Fire Department's fire boat was on the scene in less than an hour to help with the oil spill but they were turned back by the Coast Guard, who told them they didn't need any assistance and it was only a very small spill.

The Coast Guard is now saying it was too foggy to put up aircraft to determine the size of the spill. What they're not saying is that the local TV stations were broadcasting video of the size of the spill for hours before the Coast Guard realized it was much, much larger than they thought. They didn't begin to figure out that they might have a problem until they started receiving inquiries from the TV stations questioning the accuracy of their claim that it was only a 140-gal spill. It took the Coast Guard eight hours to figure out that the spill was really 58,000 gallons and not 140 gallons and then it was another four hours before they told anybody.

[Ninong]

If you can't trust the Coast Guard, who can you trust?

Some of San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom's political opponents are blaming him for not acting quicker to do something about the oil spill.

For more than 12 hours after the 8:30 a.m. spill, city officials accepted the Coast Guard's faulty estimate that only 140 gallons of fuel oil were in the water - even though the smell was so strong along the waterfront that Port Director Monique Moyer ordered the port's headquarters near the Ferry Building evacuated in the middle of the day. The mayor's office thought Moyer was overreacting.

"Did we send people into the bay with cups to measure the spill? No," Newsom said Tuesday. "We relied on the Coast Guard and other agencies for the facts."

The Coast Guard did not notify the mayor's office until after 9 p.m. that the 8:30 a.m. oil spill was actually more than 140 gallons.

[Ninong]

That 58,000-gal fuel oil spill is causing serious damage to wildlife...

[Ninong]

Did the Coast Guard warn the ship's pilot he was about to hit the bridge as previously reported?

Not exactly!


Coast Guard failed to warn ship's pilot about hitting the Bay Bridge, investigators say.

(11-15) 15:09 PST San Francisco - -- The Coast Guard did not warn the Cosco Busan that it was about to sideswipe the base of a Bay Bridge tower last week, even after the freighter appeared to be seriously off course, investigators said today.

The National Transportation and Safety Board reported that in the moments before the collision on Nov. 7, operators at the Coast Guard's Vessel Traffic Service asked pilot John Cota where he was heading because the ship seemed to be straying from a course under the the bridge.

In fact, the pilot's bearing was so wrong that traffic monitors thought he intended to stop the ship south of the bridge.

Cota radioed back that he indeed intended to pilot the ship under the bridge, and the service operators decided to leave him alone as he negotiated the delicate task, investigators said.

You can read the rest here.