Oil Spill Outrage

The recent crash into the Bay Bridge by the Cosco Busan container ship is an atrocity.They will unravel the facts of this crash for years to come but the birds, fish, marine life, oyster farmers, surfers and all of us have to deal with the fallout now. And it is an outrage. Every day there is another new fact elicited about what happened that morning. Today the Chronicle reports that the ship captain was unfamiliar with the electronic guidance system on the ship while operating it in the fog. Nice.

Everyone knows that there is no excuse for this to have happened. Senator Feinstein suggested someone should question why this was a single hulled ship. If the Chronicle reports are accurate, someone needs to question how a huge cargo ship like this one, was being captained by someone who could not operate the directional electronics. There was a complete breakdown in management of this vessel. Is it not foreseeable that someplace, somewhere there might be fog necessitating the use of the electronic directional system. Certainly no one might assume that there might be fog in the San Francisco Bay while this massive ship is attempting to dock or leave port. Bottom line is that Cosco (China Ocean Shipping) or whoever owns this ship, is not going to take the time to check out its ship captains. San Francisco and the entire Bay Area suffers the consequences.

The other day, Senator Feinstein indicated that from what she heard, this accident should never have happened. Ah, the insights of our elected officials.

But that apparently was only the half of it. Based upon reports in the media, it appears that the crash occurred at 8:30 am, but it was not until eight (8) hours later that the Coast Guard realized 58,000 gallons had poisoned the Bay. During the previous 8 hours, reports say that the Coast Guard thought only 140 gallons had been unleashed. What is that about?? The reports I am seeing indicate that all 58,000 gallons were in the Bay by 9:00 am. Why did the Coast Guard fail to learn about the size of the spill immediately?

The point is that these people have a lot of responsibility to do their jobs properly and the health and wellbeing of an ecosystem that is far reaching is in the balance. Lives and livelihoods are dramatically affected.

Now it is about the blame game and the focus will of course turn to the law suits. I suppose that is what we do as lawyers. Regrettably, I wonder if all that is left now is the finger pointing and a few good people trying to help clean it all up.

I hope that there is an investigation that results in a framework or forum for ideas that leads to more rigid limitations for ships navigating the San Francisco Bay.