Well the usual crap is hitting the fan in regards to the SF bay oil spill

[n2doc]

Let's see....incompetent captain...check...

Pilot says Cosco Busan's captain directed vessel into bridge

The pilot of the freighter that struck the Bay Bridge last week, fouling the bay with 58,000 gallons of fuel, told federal investigators that the accident occurred after the ship's radar failed and the captain of the vessel made a monumental error, a lawyer for the pilot said Tuesday.
Meanwhile, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger postponed the start of the bay's normally vibrant fishing season, while cleanup crews made significant headway on the worst-hit beaches, and politicians and environmentalists braced for a flurry of state and federal hearings into the spill.
The most startling of the day's revelations came from attorney John Meadows, who represents John Cota, the pilot of the Cosco Busan last Wednesday. Cota said the Chinese captain of the ship guided the freighter toward a bridge tower in the fog, the attorney said.
Meadows said his client told him and investigators for the National Transportation Safety Board, which is looking into the crash, that the Cosco Busan's radar "conked out" twice - first before departure and again as the ship was near the lighthouse on Yerba Buena Island.
Cota was forced to rely on an electronic chart display, showing the track of the vessel and its speed, plus charts of San Francisco Bay. Meadows said the pilot told him he was "not familiar" with the electronic system on the Cosco Busan. "They are all different," Meadows said.
Cota asked Mao Cai Sun, the captain of the Cosco Busan, to point on the display to the center of the bridge span between the Delta and Echo towers on the western side of the Bay Bridge.
"The master pointed that out," Meadows said. "In fact, several times during the trip. That's what the pilot was heading for."

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/11/14/MNC5TBQ9R.DTL


Slow response....check...

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."

All through the day, the heavy fuel oil that spilled from the container ship Cosco Busan washed up on beaches along the San Francisco and Marin coastlines, leaving purplish sheens on the water and black blobs in the sand. Hundreds of birds coated in thick, gloppy oil were injured or dead.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/11/09/MNVQT8TN3.DTL



Screwed up enforcement and testing...check...

Ship crew's drug, alcohol tests botched, Coast Guard says

The Coast Guard and the owners of the Cosco Busan freighter apparently botched the drug and alcohol testing of the crew of the ship after it hit the Bay Bridge last week and dumped 58,000 gallons of oil into the bay, Coast Guard officials told The Chronicle this morning.
The agency informed lawmakers on Capitol Hill Wednesday that ship's operators had failed to test all the crew members for drugs within the 32 hours required by federal law. In fact, some of the crew was not tested until 53 hours after the incident last week.
The immediate testing of the crew after an incident is the responsibility of the owner and operator of the vessel, but the Coast Guard is responsible for making sure the testing rules are strictly followed.
The results of the drugs tests are not yet back from the lab, and it's not clear yet if the delay could have undermined the efficacy of the tests. Alcohol tests also were apparently late. Coast Guard officials say they will investigate to see what might have gone wrong in the various processes.
"It certainly shows the operator missed a crucial detail," Lt. Commander Tony Guild, who oversees inspections, investigations and analysts for the Coast Guard's western region.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/11/14/BAFETCBQT.DTL&tsp=1


Politicians choosing to stay on vacation instead of crisis management....check....

Peskin hammers Newsom over post-spill Hawaii trip

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom's decision to take a Hawaiian getaway with gal pal Jennifer Siebel in the midst of the big fuel spill on the bay is providing new fodder for Newsom's critics.
"The facts are, he left town after he knew he had a 58,000-gallon spill on his hands," said Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin.
Peskin, of course, is fighting with the mayor over allegations that the board president has been bullying Newsom's department heads. He says raising questions about the three-day vacation Newsom took starting Thursday is not an attempt to deflect the questions being aimed his way.
"The facts are the facts," Peskin said.
And the fact is that, on Thursday afternoon, after learning that the Coast Guard had vastly underestimated the size of the previous day's spill, Newsom still felt things were well enough in hand for him to take his planned post-election vacation.
"And from the city's perspective, they were," Newsom said. Besides, he added, he hadn't had a weekend off in a year.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/chronicle/archive/2007/11/14/BARTTBLDJ.DTL

stay tuned for more...

[rocktivity]

1. But how soon before it hits the shoreline?

:(
rocknation

[Sequoia]

2. It already has on some beaches.

[LeftCoast]

3. It's all over the shoreline

In the bay and out. Crab season has been delayed, might even be called off. It's just an absolute mess.

Edited to add this link to a google map of the spill:

Click Here