BUSINESS, Page 42Whose Mess Is It?In the gooey aftermath of three spills, Congress is puttingpressure on Big Oil to prevent accidents and do a better jobof cleaning them upBy Barbara Rudolph
The scene has become painfully familiar this year: exhausted
workers struggling to scoop up a noxious tide of inky goo. A major
cleanup campaign was under way once again last week in three
different spots in the U.S.: the Delaware River, Rhode Island's
Narragansett Bay and the Houston Ship Channel. Crews were deploying
rakes, hand-held skimmers, oversize absorbent pads and
"supersucker" vacuums to scoop up the oil spilled in the accidents.
While all the slicks were much smaller than the 10.5 million-gal.
spill of the Exxon Valdez in Alaska last March, the timing of the
latest mishaps, which all occurred within a twelve-hour period on
June 23 and 24, had a powerful effect. "The political impact of
these three spills will be much, much greater than their
environmental impact," said Richard Golob, editor of Golob's Oil
Pollution Bulletin, an industry newsletter.
The spills stirred public outcry and galvanized congressional
sentiment to impose tougher regulations on the oil-shipping
industry. In House testimony last week, the Coast Guard reported
that it had recorded 6,700 oil spills during 1988, ten of which
involved at least 100,000 gals. While total spills were down from
10,000 in 1984, environmentalists contend that the level remains
unacceptably high, especially in light of the poor results of most
mop-up efforts. Cleanup crews recover on average no more than 10%
of major oil spills, a performance that has failed to improve
during the past 20 years, according to Amy Stolls, editor of Oil
Spill Intelligence Report. Declares Alaska Governor Steven Cowper:
"It is clear that the industry does not have the equipment,
expertise or technology to mount an effective response (to a spill)
within a critically short period of time." As the U.S. imports a
growing share of the oil it consumes, bringing it in on tankers,
spills will inevitably become a larger environmental threat.
Last week the Coast Guard, National Guardsmen and private
contractors made unusually good progress in cleaning up the uncanny
string of spills. In Narragansett Bay, where the Greek tanker World
Prodigy struck a reef and spewed 420,000 gals. of No. 2 fuel oil,
most of the residue had evaporated or was rounded up by week's end.
While the fuel may have long-term toxic effects on some marine
life, fishermen were able to harvest shellfish for the first time
since the accident. After an initial investigation, the ship's
captain, Iakovos Georgudis, was charged with one misdemeanor count
of discharging pollutants in violation of the Clean Water Act and
another misdemeanor count of discharging refuse. (Maximum penalty
for each count: one year in prison and a fine that could amount to
as much as twice the total cost of the cleanup.)
In Delaware, where the Uruguayan tanker Presidente Rivera ran
aground and spilled 300,000 gals. of heavy No. 6 oil, about 70%
had been cleaned up. The smallest of the spills, which occurred
when a barge collided with a cargo ship in the Houston Ship Channel
and released 250,000 gals. of heavy crude, was almost completely
recovered. Nature cooperated: high winds blew most of the petroleum
into an industrial channel where it could be scooped up easily.
Even the most effective cleanup operations, however, could not
derail the momentum in Congress to enact tougher laws to regulate
oil shipping. Already more than 16 bills have been introduced in
the wake of the Valdez disaster. Though similar legislation has
foundered on Capitol Hill during the past 14 years, "the pressure
is on Congress to get something passed this year," says John
Catena, a science-policy analyst at the Oceanic Society. Last week
the Senate Commerce Committee approved the Oil Tanker Navigation
Safety Act, making that proposed law the first post-Valdez bill to
reach the full Senate. In response to the Valdez accident, in which
the captain may have been drinking, the proposed law would require
mandatory alcohol testing.
Lawmakers and environmentalists grow especially militant when
they recall the oil industry's past bravado about its ability to
handle any spills. In 1982, for example, a Mobil Corp. newspaper
ad headlined OIL SPILLS: LESS THREAT NOW boasted that "oceanic
pollution from oil transportation has abated, thus insuring the
continued health of the seas. That's progress of which we are
understandably proud." Says Erik Olson, an attorney with the
National Wildlife Federation: "The oil industry has been dragged
kicking and screaming into doing anything about oil-spill
response."
The industry's strongest effort at reform came two weeks ago,
when the American Petroleum Institute, a trade group of big oil
companies, announced a $250 million program to make cleanups more
effective. Admitting that the industry is now unable to respond
adequately to catastrophic (over 8 million gals.) spills, the group
will establish five regional centers, staffed 24 hours a day, to
rush equipment and workers to accident sites.
The group has also called for a study of better cleanup
technology and tanker construction. The proposed research would
consider whether double-hulled tankers are safer than single-hulled
ships, which are now far more common in U.S. waterways. Oil company
executives have so far resisted double hulls, which are about 10%
more expensive to build, arguing that they could prove harder to
salvage in the event of an accident because water could fill the
cavity between the hulls. But some proponents of the more costly
model dispute that point and contend that the second hull offers
more protection in a collision. While modern ships are equipped
with increasingly advanced guidance systems, human error is blamed
for more than half of all spills. "We are seeing a number of ships
with state-of-the-art technology bumping into things. That
shouldn't happen," says Alan Pollock, spokesman for the National
Transportation Safety Board. As a result, several congressional
bills would require larger staffed and better trained tanker crews.
In recent years, shipping companies have cut back their crews to
save money.
Another line of defense that is targeted for bolstering is the
Coast Guard, which had diverted some of its attention in the 1980s
from oil-spill prevention to drug interdiction. Several
congressional bills would provide money to improve the Coast
Guard's traffic-control system, which coordinates ship movements
in coastal waters. Shipping experts believe the Coast Guard should
improve its radar facilities. In the case of the Exxon Valdez, the
equipment failed to show the ship cruising off course.
A new generation of spill-cleanup technology would have the
most dramatic impact on the problem. "Our current technology is in
the Stone Age," says the National Wildlife Federation's Olson. The
booms and skimmers that are most frequently used suffer some basic
flaws: they do not work in rough seas, and heavy crude tends to
seep under a boom and clog a skimmer. Finally, the devices are all
but useless when confronted with a devastatingly large spill like
the Valdez disaster. Once the oil had spread over the vast Prince
William Sound, a boat towing a skimmer needed fully 14 hours to
clear one narrow swath across the 35-mile-wide bay. The chemical
dispersants often used in oil cleanups have problems too. They
cannot function in calm water, and because they are toxic, they can
seriously damage fish and wildlife.
Such statistics have persuaded many people that some
territories should be placed off limits to oil-field development.
Last week the House Appropriations Committee voted to enact a
yearlong ban on drilling off vast areas of the coasts of California
and Florida, a 50-mile stretch of the mid-Atlantic and part of New
England. Congress has never before urged so sweeping a ban on
offshore exploration. The committee also voted for a year's
moratorium on oil and gas exploration in Alaska's Bristol Bay, an
exceedingly rich fishing area.
That strategy, however, has a catch. If the U.S were to develop
new domestic sources of oil, the country could reduce its
dependence on foreign tankers in its harbors. Last year foreign
producers provided the U.S. with 37% of its oil supplies, up from
27% in 1985. Since foreign oil enters the country mostly by tanker,
growing imports only increase the odds of new spills. According to
projections by Ohio Democrat Mary Oakar, chairwoman of the House
Economic Stabilization Subcommittee, by the end of the 1990s as
much as 90% of the oil consumed in the U.S. could arrive by tanker,
up from about 65% now. A serious, renewed campaign of energy
conservation would help stem that tanker flow and pay other fringe
benefits as well. But as long as foreign crude remains relatively
cheap, that goal may prove as elusive as the puncture-proof oil
