SF Bay Collision Spills 58,000 gal. Bunker Fuel

Wednesday morning at 8:30 AM, the container ship Cosco Busan collided with one of the piers of the west span of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge tearing a 160 ft gash into the ship.  Throughout Wednesday we were hearing numbers like 140 gallons for the amount of bunker fuel spilled in the bay.

Rob Roberts, a lieutenant with the state Department of Fish and Game, said the 140 gallons of fuel that spilled from the ship will take about a month to clean up. By midday, some fuel had already reached Pier One in San Francisco just north of the Ferry Building.

He said the spill is "something we're worried about."

Hunter added, "One hundred-forty gallons is 140 gallons too much."

Roberts said private companies hired by the ship owner will perform the cleanup.

http://www.sfgate.com/...

Now the truth is coming out.  The new estimate is that 58,000 gallons of bunker fuel spilled into the Bay.  The Coast Guard is claiming to have 8,000 gallons contained, leaving 50,000 out there.

More after the flip.

An 810-foot-long container ship crashed into the base of a tower of the Bay Bridge's western span in heavy fog Wednesday, spilling 58,000 gallons of fuel into San Francisco Bay.

....

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.

http://www.sfgate.com/...

In the largest oil spill in San Francisco Bay in at least a decade, a 900-foot container ship navigating through heavy fog collided Wednesday with a Bay Bridge abutment, spilling 57,000 gallons, according to preliminary estimates.

Wednesday's collision punctured a fuel tank, allowing heavy duty bunker fuel oil to leak into the Bay, and noxious fumes waft toward San Francisco's financial district.

After reports that oil was washing up on shore, the National Park Service closed five San Francisco beaches - Fort Point, Baker Beach, China Beach, Crissy Field and Kirby Cove, according to the U.S. Coast Guard Petty Officer 3rd Class Michael Anderson.

http://www.insidebayarea.com/...

•  Photos

  Over at Calitics, Bob Brigham has some pictures of oil slicks he saw at Pier 7 in San Francisco.

  http://www.calitics.com/...

  Furthermore, people who work for the Port of San Francisco at Pier 1 had to go home because the fumes from the oil were making them sick.

  Port workers were sent home around lunchtime, as the seriousness of the accident became apparent.

  "The fumes at Pier 1 in the area of the Ferry Building were just overpowering," Port spokeswoman Renee Dunn said.

  Department of Public Health Director Mitch Katz said locals could be at risk from the oil only if they can smell the fumes.

  http://www.examiner.com/...

  by ortcutt on Thu Nov 08, 2007 at 01:29:47 AM PDT

  •  Well how did the damned bridge

    get in the way??

      Ships have radar -- and one would supposed that pilots are required. Although in Washington it was a pilot who managed to hit a bridge -- he broke the bridge.

     I take it that the Bay bridge is still standing??

     Spills in the SF Bay -- nasty for wildlife and the whole ecosystem.

    by Carib and Ting on Thu Nov 08, 2007 at 01:43:14 AM PDT

    •  Unclear

      A San Francisco Bar Pilot was at the helm, so it is especially puzzling.  

      http://www.sfbarpilots.com/

      Radar, GPS, etc... and he still managed to hit the bridge.  The bridge piers have bumpers so there was no effect on the bridge.

      by ortcutt on Thu Nov 08, 2007 at 01:48:12 AM PDT

•  It was damn foggy this morning

  by jfern on Thu Nov 08, 2007 at 02:07:29 AM PDT

  •  I'm on the east coast, but I thought there was

    also a recent 100 car pile-up in Fresno due to fog just the other day...? Fog here rises gently in the morning, but I have seen in other places where it is an instant-onset sort of thing.

    by peaceloveandkucinich on Thu Nov 08, 2007 at 03:05:55 AM PDT

    •  It's a different phenomenon

      In the Central Valley they get Tule Fog.  Fog in the SF Bay comes off the ocean.  It's foggy probably 25% of the time here though, so it should not be something that a Bar Pilot has difficulty dealing with.

      by ortcutt on Thu Nov 08, 2007 at 11:41:57 AM PDT

•  Unreal

  The company honestly expected people to believe that only 140 gallons spilled from a 160 foot gash?  Sounds like wishful thinking or the company was hoping the mess would not be quite so obvious.

  by DWG on Thu Nov 08, 2007 at 03:42:57 AM PDT

  •  That's what the Coast Guard

    and the Department of Fish and Game were reporting.  Where they were getting their figures from is unclear.  It was a totally ludicrous number though.

    by ortcutt on Thu Nov 08, 2007 at 11:43:07 AM PDT

•  Ya know...

  I heard about this on Anderson Cooper 360 last night, and the person reporting it to Cooper (some lady, don't know her name) was quite nonchalant about the whole thing. She even said that anyone driving on the bridge at the time probably didn't even feel the collision. Well thank [diety] for that! Then she and Cooper had a jolly good chuckle. Good thing oil spills don't "feel" like anything, because I sure would hate for those drivers to have been bothered by it. (Oh and in case no one can tell, I'm being sarcastic.)

  You'd think after Anderson just did that big CNN documentary "Planet in Peril," it might have occurred to him to ask whether there was any chance of damage to the Bay's aquatic life. But that's just too much of a logical connect-the-dots, I guess.

  by pattyp on Thu Nov 08, 2007 at 06:30:22 AM PDT