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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.
from the November 26, 2007 edition
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However, he sees its merits, since it consolidates the Guard's assets in times of emergency.
The Coast Guard incident commander argued at the hearing that several ships were available immediately following the accident that in years past would have been off-limits since they belonged to search and rescue.
What strains there have been in recent years comes from the explosion in overall ship traffic, not from Sept. 11 duties, said Admiral Bone.
"We received more assets for the security portion" of the post-9/11 mission, said Bone. "At the same time the marine industry grew almost 100 percent, and what we didn't do is keep pace with the resources to provide [maritime] services."
Such funding tensions are not new. The service has been underfunded for decades, and at various times been asked to beef up port security, say experts,
"These are missions that the Coast Guard has had for most of the 20th century, it's just that the level of effort would wax and wane," says Mike Conway, a retired Coast Guard commander and former director of Alaska spill prevention.
The same focusing and fading of attention occurs with oil-spillresponse, he says.Some of the emerging details suggest attention waned: The training of fishermen stopped because the private company said it had no more money from the shipping companies. The state office of Oil Spill Prevention and Response got shortchanged on personnel requests, and struggled to fill vacancies with unattractive salaries. And despite state laws stipulating certain unannounced drills once every three years, they have not happened. Planned drills have taken place, including one last year involving more than 400 people. However, it did not flag potential breakdowns in communication.
The mayor of San Francisco, Gavin Newsom, told the subcommittee that he first learned the true scope of the resulting oil slick from his car radio – a full 12 hours after the spill.
Calling the delay "unacceptable," Mr. Newsom suggested that while disaster response procedures have been tightened since 9/11, oil- spill response follows an "outdated" command structure "foreign to any other command protocol used for other emergencies."
On top of Newsom's call for reform in protocols, panelists put forth several other suggestions, including:
•Giving the Coast Guard authority to compel pilots to change direction.
•Mandating that fishermen be incorporated in oil-spill response.
•Double hulling not just tankers but the fuel compartments on other large ships.
Meanwhile, spill clean-up work continues, involving more than 860 workers who have cleaned at least 19 beaches. Crews have recaptured one-fifth of the oil – an above-average amount.
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