Department of Water Resources
A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment
November 8, 2007
4. Water Quality
Ship hits span, spills oil in Bay; Gashed vessel hits but does not damage Bay Bridge; cleanup ongoing – Oakland Tribune
Spilled fuel oil is 'the nastiest stuff around' - San Francisco Chronicle
Damage being assessed in massive oil spill - San Francisco Chronicle
Ship crashes into Bay Bridge tower, spills fuel oil - San Francisco Chronicle
Ship hits span, spills oil in Bay; Gashed vessel hits but does not damage
By Erik N. Nelson and Bill Brand, staff writers
In the largest oil spill in
About 8:30 a.m., the Cosco Busan struck the base of the second suspension tower west of Yerba Buena Island, cutting a gash estimated to be about 80 feet long and 20 feet wide toward the front of the ship's left side.
The impact also punctured a fuel tank, allowing fuel oil to leak into the Bay.
Some of that evaporated into noxious fumes that wafted toward
As the slick spread, it began hitting major landmarks in the water around
"By 1 p.m. oil hit the rocks at
Powell said the National Park Service closed six beaches Wednesday afternoon:
She said it was unknown what the impact is on wildlife.
"We certainly are concerned about wildlife. The concern is how widespread this is going to go along the coast."
The incident prompted the involvement of more than a dozen local, state and federal agencies dealing with myriad issues including international shipping, harbor piloting, air quality and the welfare of the Bay's aquatic creatures.
The pilot, John Cota, has 26 years of experience, and the ship's crew members responsible for navigation were given drug and alcohol tests. Those results were not available Wednesday evening, said Coast Guard spokesman Petty Officer Kevin Neff.
The incident had no effect on the bridge or anyone driving across it, and Caltrans engineers who examined the structure determined that the vessel did not make contact with the actual concrete abutment, said Caltrans spokesman Bart Ney. The only damage was to the system of heavy plastic beams meant to absorb the shock of such mishaps.
"It did what it was supposed to do," Ney said. "The bridge didn't even feel the impact."
But the impact did do damage to the vessel, owned by South Korean Hanjin Shipping and carrying containers for the China Ocean Shipping Co. Once the ship's crew and the Coast Guard had transferred fuel from the breached tank and contained the spill with absorbent foam barriers, it was moved across the Bay to Anchorage Nine, offshore from the former naval station in
The
"We lost about 100 feet of the fender system," which rose 20 to 30 feet above the water line, Ney said. "They are designed to disintegrate when they are hit by a large ship."
U.S. Coast Guard Petty Officer 3rd Class Michael Anderson said the agency came up with the preliminary estimates of the spill's size by taking water samples from the Bay and comparing the liquid load on the vessel before and after the crash.
On Wednesday night, the U.S. Coast Guard maintained a security perimeter around its vessel and the sheen, which is the fuel on top of the water. "As soon as daybreak comes we will ramp up our cleanup operations," he said.
According to Dan Leininger, a retired U.S. Navy lieutenant commander who used to navigate a 700-foot nuclear-powered cruiser through the same area, the trip should have been routine even with the bridge shrouded in fog.
"The bridge shows up on radar real well," said Leininger, who now serves as harbormaster for
According to the Coast Guard, the ship had a local pilot onboard, who Leininger said "should know the area like the back of his hand." #
Spilled fuel oil is 'the nastiest stuff around'
San Francisco Chronicle – 11/8/07
By Jonathan Curiel and Brian Hoffman, staff writers
The fuel that spilled from a container ship into
The heavy-duty bunker fuel oil that leaked from the Cosco Busan after it clipped the base of one of the Bay Bridge's towers is what's left over after oil is refined for gasoline, and "it's the nastiest stuff around," said Gerald Graham of Victoria, British Columbia, who has been trained by the Canadian coast guard as an on-scene commander for oil spill cleanups.
"It doesn't tend to break down very quickly," Graham said. "It's cheap, and it's dirty. If the wind happens to blow it out into a channel or bay, it could spread, and then you could have miles of shoreline that could be affected."
By 3 p.m. Wednesday, some of the 58,000 gallons that spilled from the Cosco Busan had already floated into the Pacific and along the
"I actually smelled it before I saw it," said Capt. Jimmy Robertson, who owns and operates the Outer Limits from
When Robertson returned to dock in
At noon, some 250 employees of the
"It smells like heavy motor oil. It makes your eyes burn," said Renée Dunn, port spokeswoman. She said the staff had been sent home "for the safety of everybody."
Public health officials with the city said the fumes, while noxious, would not cause long-term health problems.
The
Late Wednesday, oil spill response teams had put a floating boom around the Cosco Busan as the vessel lay at anchor off Candlestick Point. They also put booms around the sheen of oil left by the ship between the
There is no estimate of when the oil spill will be cleaned up, said Coast Guard Petty Officer Michael Anderson.
The spill could have serious long-term consequences for fish, birds and plant life in and around the bay, said Keren Murphy, a Sierra Club expert on offshore drilling and fishing.
"Oil is extremely toxic to marine life, even at low concentrations or small spills," Murphy said. "On top of that, in an enclosed bay like
The bunker fuel "could potentially affect the bottom-dwelling organisms, fish, invertebrates, which are food for the larger, charismatic species that we all see," Murphy said. "It will then affect them."
Only about 30 percent of birds and mammals exposed to oil spills survive for more than a year, "due to the toxicity of the oil," Murphy said. #
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Damage being assessed in massive oil spill
San Francisco Chronicle – 11/8/07
By Henry K. Lee, staff writer
Officials from a host of local, state and federal agencies are meeting today to discuss how to clean up a 58,000-gallon spill in
Some 8,000 gallons of oil have been contained, U.S. Coast Guard Petty Officer Russ Tippets said this morning.
Representative from 13 agencies are meeting at
The Coast Guard launched at first light today to check for sheen in the water and to track the flow of oil, he said.
Oil began leaking into the water after Hanjin Shipping's 65,131-ton Cosco Busan, an 810-foot-long container ship, crashed into the base of a tower of the
It was the first time in memory that an oceangoing ship had run into the bridge, which did not suffer major damage.
Authorities have shut down
Oil has also affected
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/11/08/BAD8T8PLU.DTL&hw=water&sn=002&sc=271
Ship crashes into
San Francisco Chronicle – 11/8/07
By Carl Nolte and Michael Taylor, staff writers
An 810-foot-long container ship crashed into the base of a tower of the
It was the first time in memory that an oceangoing ship had run into the bridge. There was no apparent major damage to the span, but the hull of Hanjin Shipping's 65,131-ton Cosco Busan was ripped.
Within hours of the 8:30 a.m. crash, oil was showing up on the
The U.S. Coast Guard said 8,000 gallons of the fuel had been contained by the evening, and the state Department of Fish and Game's oil spill unit began taking steps to contain and clean up the rest of the spill.
Coast Guard investigators were looking into how the ship, under the control of one of the bay's most experienced pilots and equipped with radar, crashed.
The ship hit the base of the second tower west of Yerba Buena Island, scraping up against the wood, plastic and concrete fender that protects each tower from damage at water level. The fender system "performed the way it was designed," and the bridge remains sound, Caltrans spokesman Bart Ney said.
He said no one driving on the bridge would have felt a thing.
It's extremely rare for a ship to hit one of the eight spans that cross the bay - the last such incident was 10 years ago, when a vessel ran into the Benicia-Martinez bridge - and the Coast Guard said something must have gone badly awry in Wednesday's accident.
The agency would not speculate on whether either mechanical factors or human error was the most likely explanation.
"Obviously, it shouldn't have happened," said Coast Guard Capt. William Uberti, captain of the Port of San Francisco and the chief federal officer investigating the incident.
Hundreds of ships pass under the
The Cosco Busan was carrying container cargo bound from
The pilot on board was Capt. John Cota, who has worked on the bay for more than 25 years, said Patrick Moloney, executive director of the San Francisco Pilot Commission. Cota is one of the most experienced of the 60 captains who guide ships into the bay, Moloney said.
Efforts to reach Cota for comment were unsuccessful.
Although the ship's own captain has overall responsibility, the pilot controls the navigation of the vessel from the time it leaves the dock until the ship is clear of the approaches to the Golden Gate, about 12 miles at sea.
Typically, according to mariners, a pilot leaving
Most container ships outbound from
The fog was unusually thick Wednesday morning as the Cosco Busan headed out, and the National Weather Service had issued a dense fog advisory.
In fog, the pilot uses radar to determine the ship's position. There is also a radar transponder in the center of the bridge between the towers.
For some unknown reason, the Cosco Busan drifted left as it approached the bridge. The tide had just turned, and the current was flooding slightly - that is, moving into the bay from the ocean, or moving in a southerly direction under the
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.
The Coast Guard's Uberti would not speculate on the cause of the accident. However, people familiar with ship operations said there could have been a number of explanations.
The ship might have lost power or steering and thus have been out of control, mariners said. The seaman steering the ship under the pilot's orders might have made a mistake. The pilot might have been forced to swerve to avoid a small vessel, or he might have made an error in the position of the ship.
Once the ship was brought under control, the crew transferred fuel from the leaking tanks into other fuel tanks. The ship then moved under its own power to Anchorage Nine, in the middle of the bay near Candlestick Point. It trailed a sheen of oil as it went.
The Coast Guard is testing Cosco Busan's navigating officers and crew and the pilot for drugs or alcohol. The ship will remain at anchor indefinitely and will not be allowed to go to sea until the Coast Guard and other authorities determine what repairs need to be made.
In the meantime, the accident and oil spill are being investigated by no fewer than 13 organizations, from the Coast Guard and the state Department of Fish and Game to the
Authorities shut down
At a displacement of 65,131 tons, the Cosco Busan is larger than the famous liner Titanic but smaller than many container ships that call at the
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/11/08/MNUKT85I3.DTL&hw=water&sn=016&sc=237
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