So it wasn't 140 gallons of oil in the San Francisco Bay

[malaise]

it was 58 fugging thousand gallons. What a bunch of LIARS. Why did th Coast Guard lie about this?

[acmavm]

1. What? Where? When? How? Who?

[krispos42]

2. ship hit a bridge in the fog

It was in LBN, I believe.

[malaise]

3. Here

Reports yesterday said 140 gallons. Now it's a major disaster.
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/nov2007/2007-11-08-093.asp
<snip>
In the largest oil spill in San Francisco Bay in at least a decade, a container ship navigating outbound through heavy fog hit a span of the San Francisco Bay Bridge Wednesday morning.

The collision damaged the 900-foot container carrier Cosco Busan, allowing 58,000 gallons of bunker fuel to spill into the bay. CALTRANS has confirmed there is no structural damage to the bridge.

Two overflights conducted this morning showed that oil has now spread as far south as Hunters Point, east of Treasure Island and Angel Island, up through Raccoon Straits and Brook Island along the San Francisco city waterfront and past the Golden Gate Bridge as far north as Tennessee Point in Marin County.

[BuyingThyme]

4. I heard it was 110 gallons, and

it was immediately controlled.

[malaise]

5. The truth is out now

Have to wonder who gave the orders to lie.

It's on MSNBC now.

Add.

[Xithras]

6. Why do you assume it was a lie?

As I posted in the other thread.

1.) The sensors on the ship that Gage the fuel level were destroyed during the impact and didn't show the fuel loss. There was no way to determine the spillage from on-board the ship.

2.) The fuel had already completely spilled before the CG arrived at the ship. 58,000 gallons may sound like a lot, but that amount of fuel can spill out of a 100' gash in a minute or two. The original CG estimate was based on the amount of oil they saw leaking when they arrived on the scene, and they didn't understand that most of the fuel had already spilled.

3.) It was foggy, with low surface visibility. They were also very close to the Bay Bridge. It was impossible to put a plane or chopper into the air to estimate the size of a slick. An estimation of that type is hard to do in GOOD weather from the surface, and nearly impossible when it's foggy and your visibility is limited to a few hundred yards.

They couldn't get an accurate estimate until they were able to crack the tanks open and manually measure the fuel. That takes a while. They also couldn't know how much it had spread until the skies cleared and they could actually see it.

[malaise]

7. If everything you state is correct

they should have said they don't know the amount of oil that spilled. If you don't have any way of knowing the amount but say 110 gallons or 140 gallons, then you gave false information -i.e. they lied. It's that simple.

Add.

[Xithras]

14. There is a difference between being wrong and telling a lie.

The word "lie" suggests that they knew their information was not accurate and they gave it out anyway. Hindsight is 20/20, but they could only base their initial estimate on the amount of fuel leaking from the ship when they arrived. There's no indication that they understood that a larger scale leak had occurred until calls started coming in about oil washing up around the Bay, and no way to confirm it until the fog lifted.

Look at it this realistically. The Coast Guard arrived at the site of a ship collision and saw a big dent with a little bit of fuel leaking out of it. When they boarded the ship, the gauge indicated that the tanks were still full. Since they couldn't see anything on the water, there was nothing to suggest that something bigger had happened.

As the day progressed and calls began coming in about oil on the beaches, the CG began to realize that something bigger had occurred. Up until that point the whole thing appeared to be a near-miss, with the only real damage being to the ship itself. Once the calls came in, the CG looked more closely at the tank and realized the sensors had been damaged (a process that takes time), and then performed a manual level check of the tank to verify the amount of fuel on-board (a process that takes a lot longer). It wasn't until that point that they realized how much fuel had actually dumped.

That whole process took the better part of the day. It's unfortunate, but it's still hard to really affix a lot of blame on the CG. They may get scapegoated, but aside from their poor communication with the city governments, I don't see where they could have done much differently.

[cboy4]

8. I don't think they lied. They just dropped the ball, and

have been very bitchy toward reporters grilling them for answers on behalf of us.




http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/11/09/MNVQT8TN3.DTL

Response to fuel spill under Bay Bridge called 'unusually slow'

Emergency officials were pressured Thursday to explain why it took them hours to announce that 58,000 gallons of oil had leaked from a container ship that rammed the Bay Bridge on Wednesday - creating a slick that has contaminated beaches and injured hundreds of birds from Hunters Point to the Marin Headlands and out to the Farallon Islands.

San Francisco officials, frustrated that they weren't told immediately about the severity of the spill, threatened legal action against the company or agency responsible for the disaster. Sen. Barbara Boxer has called for scrutiny of the Coast Guard's response. Residents and environmental groups have become increasingly alarmed at the sprawling contamination - and what they called an anemic cleanup response taking place as late as Thursday night.

"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."

[malaise]

10. Giving false information is lying

Here the link from yesterday
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=2240772

[cboy4]

13. Yea, I know what's going on. I live here. To the extent

that the Coast Guard deliberately gave false information during the initial stages of the spill...I personally don't think they did.

This is the San Francisco Coast Guard...they're docked/stationed next to the Bay Bridge and I seriously doubt they want the Bay to be the 40 mile oil slick that it is right now.

Now, did they subsequently give false information/lied to try to cover up dropping the ball? This could be the case.

[malaise]

15. Cool n/t

[Turbineguy]

9. On a ship like that

The engineering control room would have been occupied during maneuvering out of port. There would be radio communication with the bridge and besides, the bump would have been felt.

The panel with the fuel gages would very likely be located in the control room. If not it would be nearby and somebody would run to look if oil was lost.

A breach of full fuel tanks at that level would result in a rapid drop of about 1/3 on those gages. a 230 ton drop in fuel would be noticeable

Somebody on duty would know immediately or within minutes that oil was lost and either went into the holds or over the side.

In any case the question "Did oil get in the water?" might very well get asked before "Did anybody get hurt?"

[sce56]

11. Great and 18 years later you might see this reach the Extreme Court

[sce56]

12. Great and 18 years later you might see this reach the Extreme Court

[Arugula Latte]

16. Dammit.

:cry: