Dirty Water

What the hell is going on in San Francisco Bay?

Emergency officials more than doubled the number of ships and cleanup workers attacking the massive oil spill throughout the Bay Area on Saturday - while hundreds of frustrated citizens who tried to help were turned away from contaminated beaches and so-called training sessions.

The armada of governmental and private boats on the water either searching for oily messes or mopping them up grew from 11 to 46, the Coast Guard reported, and the number of people working cleanup shifts increased from 300 to 770. Three helicopters did flyovers all day to pinpoint the worst contamination spots.

"I assure you, that's not where we're stopping," said Coast Guard Rear Adm. Craig Bone, who for days has been fending off criticism of his agency's response to the crisis. "In the next few days you'll see hundreds more people arriving on these beaches."

Yep, another coastal oil spill. And it's really, really bad:

The 65,131-ton ship hit the second tower west of Yerba Buena Island at 8:30 a.m., causing a gash more than 100 feet long in the ship's hull and releasing 58,000 gallons of fuel into the bay. The resulting oil slick has spread as far north as Tomales Bay, fouling or killing more than 100 birds.

It was the first time a commercial ship had hit the bridge and is the worst oil spill in the bay since 1996.

Immediately after the accident, Capt. Peter McIsaac, president of the San Francisco Bar Pilots, boarded a boat and headed for the Cosco Busan, then just off Treasure Island. He said oil was pouring out of a gash in the ship.

"I've never seen oil going into the water like that," he said.

The geography there is damning. They've got protective booms coming out of Chrissy Field, for godsake. The most beautiful jewel of bridge over water in a U.S. city, now longterm besmirched.

At Daily Kos, catfish has the latest on how everyone is trying to volunteer, but the Coast Guard and other feds are arresting people trying to help, while Rome burns.

Take a look at this overhead view of the Bay, with the variations in water color clearly indicating that this breach, being at the Oakland Bay Bridge on the east side of the city, is a total horrorshow

The Cosco Busan struck a tower of the Bay Bridge on Wednesday morning in dense fog, creating a long slash along the ship that allowed bunker fuel to spill into the water.

The Coast Guard initially called the spill minor but later realized the amount of fuel was greater than first thought. Environmentalists criticized the Coast Guard for not notifying other agencies fast enough and for being slow to put inflatable booms on the water's surface to prevent oil from spreading...

...Tides carried the bunker fuel towards the Pacific Ocean under the Golden Gate Bridge and people near the spill on Wednesday reported headaches and nausea. The spill reached the famed former prison island of Alcatraz and as far north as Marin County, environmentalists said.

Someone has to run against Big Oil, and I'm guessing it might be Edwards, but why doesn't someone just do it? Obscene profits, massive subsidies, life-threatening energy source who's dwindling is causing wars.

Remember the Exxon Valdez? It's still not over:

Many people remember that the Exxon Valdez tanker went aground and gushed 200,000 gallons of oil a minute into the waters of Alaska's Prince William Sound. And that its captain allegedly was drunk. It is harder to recall just how long ago that was — March 1989, more than 18 years ago.

It was the largest oil spill in the United States. It dominated the news and became part of the national culture.

But in the United States every really big story happens twice — first the thing itself, and then the trial.

The Exxon Valdez trial occurred five years later, in federal district court in Alaska. The plaintiffs were fishermen and natives claiming that their livelihoods had been destroyed by the spill, and the principal defendant was Exxon, which owned the now-immortal tanker.

It was a jury trial. It lasted for months. And then the 12 jurors deliberated and debated. And decided. They came in with a punitive damage award of $5 billion against Exxon. (Compensatory damages of $286 million had been awarded in another phase of the trial.)

That decision was on Sept. 16, 1994. Exxon quickly filed an appeal on the punitive award.

That was more than 13 years ago.

And for those 13 years, the case has remained in the seamless limbo known as appeal. It is as if time stopped. The matter went to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and there it stayed, shrouded by mystery and fog, like Skull Island. From time to time small fleets of litigants tried to approach and were themselves enveloped in the eerie mists.

Many plaintiffs died. No matter. Advantage moved from one side to the other, with no end in sight.

Then last week, the fog thickened. The Supreme Court granted certiorari, and so those plaintiffs still clinging to life will have to keep on waiting to see whether they get their money — the pot is now about $4.7 billion, because during the appeals process the sum was lowered but interest has kicked in.

Eighteen years later and still not paid. Who says you can't buy justice?

I expect to be up in SF later this month, will try to get a look.

Just heartbreaking.