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Fed. Criminal Investigation Opened on Calif. Oil Spill

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A federal criminal investigation has been opened into a 58,000-gallon spill of heavy bunker fuel into the San Francisco Bay. The spill took place when a container ship slammed into the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge Wednesday. Coast Guard officials acknowledged Friday that they had waited over four hours before notifying the public of the magnitude of the spill. They had previously reported a leak of just 140 gallons.

The oil spill has shut down over a dozen beaches and killed at least 60 birds. Ecologists warn that it could take months to clean up and that it threatens the Bay’s diverse ecosystem, including several endangered species.

Environmental organizations like Friends of the Earth and San Francisco Baykeeper have condemned the ecological impact of the spill and the slowness of the official response. They are also calling for a ban on the shipping industry’s use of the heavily polluting bunker fuel, which they say is a thousand times worse for the environment than highway diesel.
TheRealEdwin

8 responses // Fed. Criminal Investigation Opened on Calif. Oil Spill

  • http://current.com/items/87122101_golden_gate_oil_spill
    Check out this pod
    on the Bay Area oil spill
    Swiyyah
  • God this is so damn disgusting. I wish I could get my hands on the people who are responsible. What can we do to make sure these idiots aren't allowed to keep doing this? They need to be stopped!!!! They're going to continue to screw up the environment until they are stopped. This is criminal negligence!!
    Uckfay
  • Technocracy
    usumacinta
  • More power to Amy Goodman!

    I also watched the "Where is Donahue" piece; who's the bald headed idiot, no wait a minute, who cares!
    VoyagerFilms
  • with all do respect, Uckfay, you and I are implicated just as much. This criminal investigation is a waste of time. So, some pilot wasnt looking and spilled the shit all over our bay. So? It wouldnt be there in the first place if we didnt need it there. We use oil. We are implicated.

    Get off the oil and then you can play the holier-than-thou card.
    stephenthomson
  • With all due respect, Stephen, what are you doing to get off the oil?

    Uckfay was merely expressing outrage at the massacre of wildlife the tanker caused. I live in San Francisco, and saw the devestation first hand. It was disgusting and heart wrenching, to watch those birds struggle for life. We all should be outraged at the carelessness of the oil industry. There should be a cap on fuel ship size and a ban on bunker fuel.
    phoenix_fire999
  • I'm not saying i'm exempt from the guilt. and i'm not saying that birds being smothered in oil isnt a tragedy. I'm saying, "to get your hands on the people who are responsible" is to presume that you yourself have no hand in the mess, no partial responsibility, no implication in the matter. but you do.
    stephenthomson
  • Stehenthomson, you are right that we all contribute to the problem, but our consumption is largely based upon the options we are given - by government and by industry.

    To a small degree, we can vote with our dollars, but really for the last 100 years alternative fuels / energy sources have been economically viable (accounting for economy of scale), we have NOT had the opportunity to affect a change for many many reasons.

    If you consider the what happened to the mass transit rail system in Los Angeles in the early part of the last century, and look around most big cities now, you can easily conclude corporations or big business have destructively altered our course.

    Imagine if (US) Congress, or the California Attorney General of the day had not been corrupt, and acted "in the interest of the people" (to quote the Brazilian governments explanation for denying the pharmaceutical companies the opportunity to prey on Brazils citizenry), or had the elected officials simply acted on the basis of common sense, our nation would be a much greater one, a much more efficient one and the environment a much healthier one.

    I'll add, that no doubt Washington and established institutions in New York and the North East saw the destruction of mass transit throughout the country an excellent financial opportunity for themselves, but it also stifled economic development in many other parts of the country - looking at through the eyes of of the period - again, for their personal gain, not societies and not for you and I.

    So, I would conclude by saying that although we contribute to the problem, the percentage of our combined contribution to what exists now couldn't be more than a few percent. The balance of the responsibility (95%) for the way things are would be those who've manipulated the game to prosper at our expense.
    VoyagerFilms

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