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| Hearing: Rear Adm. Craig Bone, US Coast Guard, front, speaks to a House subcommittee on maritime transportation. AP |
Why cleanup of oil spill lagged
A Coast Guard focus on security may have been to blame for delays in the West Coast cleanup.
By Ben Arnoldy | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitorfrom the November 26, 2007 edition
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San Francisco - Local crab fishermen used to take part in drills to clean up oil spills, scooping up rice – the stand-in for an oil slick – that drifted atop the waters of San Francisco Bay. Then, about a decade ago, that training stopped. So when a real oil spill occurred earlier this month, the crabbers didn't have up-to-date certifications or strong ties with first responders. The Coast Guard initially rebuffed their help.
"We began telling [state agencies] in 2000 that the training of our fishermen began to lapse," says Zeke Grader, head of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations in San Francisco. But "after 9/11 the Coast Guard was completely focused on the war on terror."
Spills happen, say experts, but poor coordination with local groups of the sort seen in San Francisco has everyone from Congress to independent researchers analyzing the communication breakdown. Certain changes within the Coast Guard in the wake of Sept. 11 have emerged as early focal points.
"It seems like they are holding their cards much closer to their vest," with a greater security emphasis after Sept. 11 bringing "a reinforcement of more of the command and control" mentality, says Duane Gill, an oil-spill researcher and a professor at Mississippi State University. "But in a situation like this, the flow of information is very important."
That information flow can go two ways, with local fishing communities knowing intimately the currents and other key details.
"The damage was probably exacerbated by the lack of ... this local knowledge and expertise in the response," adds Dr. Gill. In his many years studying oil-spill responses, he says, this same failure to include local help continues.
The Coast Guard dealt with fresh controversy late last week after it was reported that the city of San Francisco offered the help of a fire boat the morning of the spill – only to be rebuffed.
The revelation capped a trying week for Rear Adm. Craig Bone, who faced tough questioning by Congressional leaders.
Some lawmakers wondered if the federal government after Sept. 11 had added too many new duties to a service already loaded.
"I think post 9/11 ... we stretched the responsibilities of the Coast Guard, and we didn't bring along the expertise or the finances necessary to take on all those," said Rep. Elijah Cummings (D) of Maryland, chairing a special House subcommittee hearing on maritime transportation last week.
Like many government entities, the Coast Guard has undergone major restructuring in recent years. The operations side – the search and rescue guys – merged with maritime safety and oil-spillresponse.
"I can see that the Coast Guard is straining with this reorganization," says Ron Morris, a retired Coast Guard captain who is now president of Alaska Clean Seas, an industry spill clean-up cooperative. The shuffle has put officers in charge of areas once entirely outside their domain, such as oil-spill response, he says.
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