Department of Water Resources
A daily compilation for DWR personnel of significant news articles and comment
November 15, 2007
1. Top Items
CRASH PROBE: Radar systems OK, feds say -
San Francisco Chronicle
FEDERAL CRIMINAL CASES RARE IN BAY AREA -
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CRASH PROBE: Radar systems OK, feds say
San Francisco Chronicle – 11/15/07
By Demia Bulwa, Carl Nolte, staff writers
Federal investigators said Wednesday that there did not appear to be anything wrong with the two radar systems on the container ship that ran into the
John Meadows, a lawyer representing John Cota, the pilot, said the ship's radar "conked out" when the Cosco Busan was passing Yerba Buena Island in the fog Nov. 7.
However, National Transportation Safety Board investigators said Wednesday that the ship's two radars and electronic charts had been inspected by a technician and were "performing as expected."
Meadows countered that investigators had not tested the ship's electronics immediately after the Cosco Busan ran into a bridge tower and spilled 58,000 gallons of bunker fuel oil into the bay.
"There is an intermittent failure in the darn thing," Meadows said, referring to the radar system. Of the federal finding that there was nothing wrong with the Cosco Busan's electronics, the lawyer said, "I give it no credence."
The radar sets on the ship and the electronic charts are at the heart of what one expert said appeared to be a series of errors that caused the 901-foot ship to hit the base of the second tower west of
On Tuesday, Meadows said Cota had outlined a scenario to the National Transportation Safety Board that had Capt. Mao Cai Sun, the ship's master, pointing out a course to Cota on the ship's electronic chart after the radar failed that led to the disaster.
When Cota asked the captain to show the center of the span on the chart, the captain pointed to what turned out to be the tower, Meadows said.
Meadows quoted Cota as saying he had not been familiar with the chart. "They are all different," the lawyer said.
The key to the matter is what course the Cosco Busan was steering and why. According to James Buckley, a professor of maritime transportation at the
Instead, the Coast Guard warned Cota that he was steering a southwesterly course, parallel to the bridge.
Soon after that, Cota made a course correction and ran the ship into the fender around the bridge tower.
The main question is what sort of electronic aid to navigation the pilot was relying on. Shortly before the accident, Cota said the image was "distorted" on the ship's radar and he could not rely on it.
Debbie Hersman, a member of the National Transportation Safety Board, said Wednesday that investigators and technicians had reviewed some of the voyage data recorder information. She said they would scrutinize radar images that were sampled every 15 seconds, along with data such as the ship's speed and heading at the time of the accident, and the rudder and engine commands that went out shortly before the Cosco Busan hit the bridge.
She said that Cota and the ship's captain had spoken in English, but that other members of the crew had spoken in Chinese. She said the board was working on translating the data.
In the meantime, crew members have declined to answer further questions from the investigators, acting on the advice of their lawyers, Hersman said.
There are several other factors for investigators to consider. Buckley said the accident could have happened through "a number of errors that compound each other."
For one thing, he said, the pilot's orders to the seaman steering the ship might not have been carried out because of language difficulties.
"The pilot would have said, "Come starboard," or right, Buckley said, "but the helmsman might have turned the wheel left instead. That happens."
Cota might also have had trouble with the electronics, engaged the ship's captain in conversation and not noticed, Buckley said.
Both John Konrad, a master mariner who runs a maritime Web site called gCaptain.com, and Sam Pecota, an assistant professor at the
"You should always use some other independent form of fixing the ship's position," Pecota said. "But if you have complete shutdown fog and the radar's gone, you probably don't have much of a choice. There's no other way to get a fix."
Some older mariners disdain electronic charts. Capt. John Denham, a retired master mariner, said the Cosco Busan pilot should have been familiar with the electronic chart in the first place and should not have relied on it.
"To conn a ship that way is ludicrous," Denham said. "It's Mickey Mouse."
However, Buckley said such views are out of date. "The advance of electronics is changing all the time," he said. "It's changed a lot over the last few years."
Mike Hanson, spokesman for Regal Stone Ltd., owners of the Cosco Busan, said the ship's electronics were up to date. "It's not Radio Shack stuff," he said.#
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/11/15/MNV2TCI6J.DTL
FEDERAL CRIMINAL CASES RARE IN BAY AREA
By Howard Mintz, staff writer
If a criminal investigation into last week's oil spill produces charges against the cargo ship's crew or owners, it will be a rare example of an environmental prosecution in
Criminal charges for violating environmental laws have been scarce in Bay Area federal courts during the past six years. And they have dropped sharply since reaching a peak in 2001, a Mercury News review of U.S. Justice Department data shows.
The tepid use of criminal laws for environmental violations here mirrors national trends - from 2001 to 2006, the Bush administration's prosecution of environmental crimes declined 36 percent, the Justice Department data shows.
Former prosecutors say they have witnessed the problem firsthand, and worry that it takes a calamity such as last week's oil spill to focus attention on the enforcement of environmental laws.
"It's a result of an insidious and intentional cutting of resources by the Bush administration," said Richard Cutler, a former environmental prosecutor who left the Justice Department earlier this year for a Silicon Valley law firm.
A federal grand jury is now investigating whether any criminal laws were violated in the oil spill or its aftermath. Acting U.S. Attorney Scott Schools, whose office is probing the oil spill and is responsible for environmental prosecutions, declined comment on the probe.
In the Northern District of California, which stretches from
Lawyers familiar with environmental law attribute the decline to a combination of factors, from a shrinking commitment to environmental enforcement to a siphoning of federal law enforcement resources to combat terrorism. Federal prosecutions in the Bay Area have been down in most categories over the past five years, much of that time under the tenure of former San Francisco U.S. Attorney Kevin Ryan, who was forced to resign earlier this year because of Justice Department concerns about his management of the office.
Environmental prosecutions in
Critics say the decline in prosecutions reflects a policy shift and budget cuts in agencies that investigate environmental violations. Eric Schaeffer, a former top enforcement official for the Environmental Protection Agency, has been the leading critic of the administration's record of criminal and civil enforcement since he resigned in 2002, issuing a report earlier this year blaming the decline on neglect.
Schools, a former Justice Department official who took over the
Despite the generally low numbers, there have been periodic enforcement actions. These include at least three instances in which federal prosecutors pressed criminal cases against shipping companies, although none involved an oil spill of last week's magnitude.
Last year, a
In 2006, Denmark-based A.P. Moller-Maersk pleaded guilty in
In 2000, the owner and operator of the oil tanker Neptune Dorado was forced to pay a $2.5 million fine for the ship's hazardous condition in the bay. The captain and former captain of the ship pleaded guilty to criminal charges and received three years probation.
Melinda Haag, who supervised environmental prosecutions in
"It was a very clear priority," she said.
Meanwhile, Haag and others say it will be time-consuming and difficult to determine if last week's oil spill will be added to the list of environmental criminal prosecutions.
They say the company could face a hefty fine and will be scrutinized for its training of the crew, as well as any shortcuts or maintenance problems that could have contributed to the accident. The crew's conduct before the crash will be reviewed for signs of negligence.
In addition, there have been a number of prosecutions for lying to the Coast Guard or EPA during investigations. The crew and company's response to the Coast Guard after the ship's collision is expected to be probed on whether false statements were made to a government agency, a felony.
"The question in my mind would be . . . what happened afterward," Haag said. "Were people truthful about what happened? The Coast Guard bases its response in part on what they are told."#
http://www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_7468010
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