Kate Wing's Blog
Tell us your oil spill story
December 4, 2007
Posted by Kate Wing in Curbing Pollution
Today we're inviting our California activists and members to tell us their experiences with the Cosco Busan spill. Thousands of volunteers have now scrubbed the beaches with hair mats, helped rescue oiled birds, and gone to great lengths to protect the Bay's wildlife. Now that the hearings are over and the crabbers are back on the water, it's time for us policy folks to roll up our sleeves and get to work. We want to know what you saw and what you think should be done. We have some of our own ideas already, but let's hear yours. Ready? Go!(bookmark or email this entry)
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Comments
Alex Barber — Dec 4 2007 11:18 AM
I love NRDC, but, the letter you want members to sign to Governor Arnold regarding the recent spill in San Francisco Bay is off base pretty badly.
Giving OSPR and the oil spill response recovery groups more money so they can more effectively respond is nuts, they get enough money, and our Governor has very little control over the real problems of which bunker fuels are on board ships like the Cosco Busan.
I am not going to tell you that OSPR, and the contract agencies they work with, do a great job, because for the most part they don't, but the job is very difficult, and for the most part, they do as good as could be expected. Giving them more money would just increase the bureaucracy, not improve the response. Oil spills happen, they happen quickly, imagine a foggy day in SF Bay, and then imagine less than perfect weather, that “dirty bunker fuel” travels pretty fast, unless they are RIGHT THERE when the spill happens, there isn’t a lot they can do, ever!!!
So, prevent the problem from happening in the first place, punish the people who caused the problem in the first place, punish the crew of the Cosco Busan, I know for a fact they were new to the ship (3 months), were they cutting corners by not keeping aboard some of the old crew from NSB (Niederelbe Schiffahrtsgesellschaft GmbH & Co) that knew the ship better, and owned it for years before this incident?? I don’t know the answer to that, but I can imagine that they did not, and even if they had, running into the Bay Bridge is pretty hard to do. So punish that San Francisco Bay Pilot, and the Owners and Master of the Cosco Busan to the highest degree possible, send a message that this level of incompetence is totally unacceptable.
Regarding the use of heavy, high sulfur, low quality bunker fuels that almost 100% of commercial ships use, Governor Arnold can’t do much about that. While I support the efforts of CARB to regulate the uses of these fuels in and around California Regulated Waters, in an effort to clean our air, the IMO (International Maritime Organization), our federal government, the world, must force these shipping companies to avail themselves of better and cleaner technologies.
Being environmentally clean is expensive, and for the shipping companies, there is not enough to gain.
Thanks,
Alex Barber
albahr33@hotmail.com
Kate Wing — Dec 4 2007 06:43 PM
Hi Alex,
Thanks for your thoughts on our letter. We're not just trying to get Schwarzenegger to throw money at OSPR, since, as you note, they are fairly well funded as state agencies go due to their dedicated oil barrel fees. However, it's not clear that OSPR is well staffed, as noted in both this 2005 Department of Finance report and the 2007 OSPR Technical Advisory report.
There's an irony in government in that funding doesn't guarantee you people because positions are authorized separately and may not be authorized even if the funding is there. During tight budget years, like the one we're heading into, there's often situation where the administration declares a hiring freeze and then the legislature eliminates any positions that have been unfilled after six months. Since it often takes six months to find and hire qualified staff, this kind of one-two cost savings punch ratchets down personnel. OSPR is charged with being the first responder to oil spills, and I think it's only right that they have at least a minimum number of trained personnel who can be on site immediately. So we think it's worth reminding the Governor to keep solid response as a priority as he finalizes his budget, not just in money, but in people.
As for throwing the book at the people responsible for hitting the bridge, absolutely. Governor Schwarzenegger should send his toughest prosecutors to fight for damages. If only he could also send robots from the future.