幾年前郵輪撞到Bay bridge，發生漏油事件，死了不少鳥類，怎麼又來了！

Oil spills into S.F. Bay south of Bay Bridge

Heather Knight, Marisa Lagos, Henry K. Lee, Peter Fimrite,,John Coté, Chronicle Staff Writers    Friday, October 30, 2009

(10-30) 15:57 PDT SAN FRANCISCO --

State and federal officials are trying to figure out what caused a Panamanian tanker to spill heavy bunker fuel in the bay today, triggering an emergency operation to clean up a sheen several miles long south of the Bay Bridge, the Coast Guard said.

The spill occurred at 6:48 a.m. as a barge pumped fuel into the tanker Dubai Star 2 1/2 miles south of the bridge, officials said. Emergency crews were scrambling to contain the oil slick and prevent it from reaching shore, where it could harm wildlife.

After realizing what had happened, the ship's crew shut off the source of the spill, officials said, but the oil had already spilled onto the Dubai Star's deck and poured into the water, where it was drifting with the tide.

Officials said they are not sure whether human error or mechanical failure caused the spill.

"There are a number of safeguards in place," for fuel transfers, said Coast Guard Capt. Paul Gugg. "There are people at both ends of the transfer who are communicating, and there's the equipment. ... Whether it was personnel or mechanical failure, we're not ready to say."

The Dubai Star is a Panamanian-flagged vessel built in 2007. It is owned by South Harmony Shipping Inc. of Panama and was carrying light jet fuel as cargo as it headed into the Bay Area. The fuel that spilled was propulsion fuel, not the ship's cargo.

The Coast Guard was quickly notified along with the Marine Spill Response Corp., a nonprofit oil spill removal organization. Within four hours, the ship was encircled by booms and the immediate spill area was contained, according to Gugg.

The Coast Guard deployed skimming vessels and five boats equipped with booms to protect environmentally sensitive areas. Marine Spill Response crews in three other vessels laid 14,000 feet of booms in an attempt to limit the disaster.

Two vessels from the National Response Corp., a company the Coast Guard contracted to clean up the spill, were also working to contain the oil.

"The notifications to the people who are conducting the cleanup were made very quickly," said Senior Chief Petty officer Keith Alholm. "The tanker crew itself enacted their vessel response plan immediately, notifying the Coast Guard. They did their best to secure the incident."

The amount of oil spilled could be as much as a few thousand gallons, said Mayor Gavin Newsom at an early afternoon press conference in his office. He said as much as 40 percent of the oil had been contained. But Coast Guard officials refused to speculate about the amount of oil that was spilled or the cause of the breach.

"There's no such thing as a small spill," Gugg said.

No oil had been reported on shore by late afternoon, but city officials asked the state to put booms around Treasure Island and Yerba Buena Island.

Alholm said the fact that there was no fog and very little wind was helping the cleanup effort, but the tides, as always, were a concern.

When the spill occurred, the tide was coming into the bay and carrying the oil south, toward the Peninsula and southern Alameda County. The sheen moved about four miles south before it switched direction at 10 a.m. and began moving north and east.

The Port of San Francisco and the fire department were standing by to place booms around the port if necessary. Sensitive sites along the waterfront include Heron Head park, Islais Creek, the sea lion sanctuary at Pier 39 and the historic ships at Pier 45.

"We have been in constant contact with the Coast Guard and Fish and Game," Newsom said. "This is not of the magnitude by any stretch of the imagination of the incident two years ago."

The container ship Cosco Busan sideswiped the Bay Bridge on Nov. 7, 2007, spilling 58,000 gallons of the same kind of fuel oil into the bay. That disaster created an uproar after miscommunication and foot-dragging allowed time for strong bay currents to disperse the sludge and foul beaches throughout the Bay Area.

Nine hours lapsed before officials were told that 58,000 gallons of oil had spilled after initial reports of only 400 gallons.

Bunker fuel washed up on beaches in the bay and along the Pacific coast from Sonoma to San Mateo counties, killing some 2,400 birds and costing about $70 million to clean up.

State, federal and local officials appeared together today at a news conference where they stressed that the magnitude of the current spill - as well as the response time - was extremely different this time.

"There has been a great partnership and cooperation thus far with the city, state and other responsible parties," Gugg said, adding that the ship's managers have also been responsive. "There are some similarities (to 2007) - the type of fuel is about the same - but that's where they end." Jared Blumenfeld, director of the city's Department of the Environment, said a command center was set up today in Alameda to monitor the situation with a particular concern for the welfare of migratory birds, including ducks, that have just arrived in the area.

"They're particularly vulnerable, and this isn't a great welcome presence for them," he said. "All the most vulnerable birds are here."

Lt. Rob Roberts, of the Department of Fish and Game, said state officials had found no evidence of oil on birds or other wildlife by late this afternoon. But a helicopter hovering over the spill at about 10 a.m. reported seeing birds diving into the oil slick, said Sylvia Wright, a spokeswoman for the Oiled Wildlife Care Network, which has been mobilized to do reconnaissance and recovery of oiled birds and other wildlife.

"We do expect that there will be birds that need to be rescued," Wright said.

Anyone who sees oiled wildlife should call (877) 823-6926, she said.

E-mail the writers at hlee@sfchronicle.com, pfimrite@sfchronicle.com, hknight@sfchronicle.com and jcote@sfchronicle.com..

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/10/30/BA9B1ACTST.DTL#ixzz0VTgsbUG8