San Francisco fuel spill
 

Environmental disaster, blah blah, suspiciously down-played by the Coast Guard yada yada. Whatever....

Rear Admiral Bone?! And the media is buying that that's his real name?!

Well, it is a gloppy mess and our Dungeness Crab season is in danger of being cancelled because of this snafu. Not to mention the mess and all the wildlife that has been affected and I'm wondering about any drift southward in the bay to the wetlands down the pennisula.

According to a report I heard this morning, the intial report from the ship informed they "touched" the Bay Bridge. Which is the crux of the confusion point and lack of speedy response.

My hat is off to all the volunteers who are trying to help with the cleanup.

Heard a f'd up report on that this morning. The ship's owner has hired a crew to work on the cleanup. That's a good thing, right? Except that they are trying to prevent volunteers, and reporters, from having access to the beach to help/cover it. Nice. They're not having much success though, being a public beach and all.

A touch that caused a 90 foot gash. Helluva touch.

According to the pilot (remember, when in the bay the boat is driven by a local (theoretically) expert) they barely felt anything on the boat.

The local NPR news did an amusing story on the volunteer clean up effort. They were explicit about it but I'm pretty sure they were trying to convey just how stupid the volunteering hoops are. Before they could do cleanup on Ocean Beach, the volunteers first had to sit through a 4 hours training session. Then they were given white hazmat suits, masks, and double gloves.

Then they went down to the beach to clean up where they were surrounded by tourists and surfers playing in the water. All of this hassle because touching the oil might cause mild skin irritation.

This is a big mistake and a problem, but personally I think the local media is way overreacting. I'm sorry but reports of a dozen dead shore birds really doesn't cause the tears to well up.

500 dead shore birds is what was reported today.

60,000 galons of this stuff, (If I'm remembering right) I'd over-react too.

Still isn't all that many (a dozen is what they were saying on the news last night). A spill in the Baltic over the weekend has already killed more than 10,000. I'm not saying it shouldn't be cleaned up just that this isn't a huge horrible emergency requiring a complete rehaul of our policies and infrastructure.

Aha, got it!

Local NPR show just had a guy on saying that state law requires 40 hours of hazardous materials training in order to work on beach clean ups for oil.

So, the cleaning companies preventing volunteers from helping are stuck in a bad PR situation but would probably be stuck with the liability if they let volunteers help them.

Yeah when I first heard about this a few days ago I just knew it was going to go nuclear. A "major" oil spill right in the backyard of perhaps the largest eco-freak subculture in the country. This has apaplectic response written all over it for the greens who will no doubt be driving down to the shore in their gas powered cars to protest this atrocity.

Get the proper clean up teams in, save all the birds you can (except pigeons, them you can let drift) sue all the companies involved to cover the clean up cost plus enough to make a point, then just get on with life.