|
When the oil finally came ashore, the black goo tarred a 13-mile stretch of Pinellas County beaches. But even that black cloud revealed a silver lining. The beach landing enabled cleanup crews with front-end loaders and shovels to scoop up the mess; mangrove thickets, much harder to flush out, were largely avoided. Beach cleanup was completed prior to Labor Day, and while vestiges of the disaster and its damages lingered, so too did an inescapable conclusion: We were lucky - very lucky.
Lucky the spill didn't occur inside the bay. Lucky that winds and tides pushed the oil slick offshore. Lucky that oil spill contingency plans had just been finalized. And lucky for oiled seabirds that just 10 months before nearly 100 volunteers had trained for just such an event, learning rescue and rehabilitation techniques that would dramatically improve their chances for survival.
Unbeknownst to officials finalizing the region's first Area Spill Contingency Plan (ACP) in July 1993, the ACP would get its sea trial just one month later. A requirement of the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 (OPA90), Tampa Bay's ACP spells out response protocols, equipment and personnel, while identifying natural resources and public areas for protection. It replaced earlier spill planning documents much less comprehensive in scope. "We were better prepared than we thought, and we did a pretty darn good job responding," says Chris Rossbach, an environmental manager with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) Bureau of Emergency Response.
The 1993 spill set a number of firsts. It was the first major U.S. spill after OPA90, landmark legislation enacted just 18 months after the Exxon Valdez spilled more than 11 million gallons of oil into Alaska 's pristine Prince William Sound. It was also the largest ever in Tampa Bay, eclipsing a much smaller but far more devastating spill in 1970 when a tanker headed for Florida Power's Weedon Island power plant ran aground spewing 20,000 gallons of heavy crude into the estuary. The spill sullied thousands of acres of underwater and coastal habitat, killing 11,000 seabirds.
Had the '93 spill occurred inside the bay, the results would have been devastating. Lush mangrove and marsh fringe, and fertile grassbeds, would have been destroyed. "It would have been a real nightmare," says Rossbach. "It would have changed the entire way we responded, turning a three-week response effort into I can't even speculate how long." We would still be cleaning up years later, and the costs would likely have exceeded the companies' liability, forcing taxpayers to pick up the tab.
Assessing damages, making amends
Responsibility for tallying damages to beaches, birds, seagrasses, mangroves and other environmental resources fell to the DEP and partners including the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Altogether, the spill fouled 13 miles of sandy beaches, nearly a half-dozen acres of mangroves, and localized seagrass and bay bottom communities exposed to the oil slick and sinking mats. Three hundred sixty-six birds were recovered for treatment at a makeshift rehab facility set up in Ft. DeSoto Park. The spill also stained miles of seawalls predominantly in Boca Ciega Bay south of John's Pass.
In 1999, the federal and state trustees reached an $8 million settlement with the vessel owners to resolve government claims, including cleanup and damage assessment costs, and restore natural resources. Of the $3.1 million earmarked for restoration, $2.5 million is funding new fishing piers, boardwalks and other enhancements at various Pinellas County beaches, with the balance devoted to another 11 ecological restoration projects, ranging from beach renourishment and salt marsh restoration to cleanup of monofilament fishing line.
Cooperation on the part of the vessel owners averted a difficult and protracted legal battle over public claims for natural resource damages.
"There was a leap of faith on all sides," says NOAA attorney Stephanie Fluke. "It wasn't a cakewalk for them." The owners and agency trustees had to address very complex technical and liability issues while enduring intense public scrutiny. It could have played out very differently, Fluke adds. "We might still be in court."
The scorecard today
Ten years later, we're better prepared and better equipped, according to local officials. "We can come in quickly with a whole bunch of equipment, we've got a lot more knowledge about how to respond, and we know how to interact," said Lt. Commander Mike Holland of the Coast Guard MSO Tampa. The biggest threat may be complacency. The longer we go without a spill, the tougher it is to keep interest and vigilance high, and companies and equipment waiting in the wings ready to respond at a moment's notice.
So how well prepared are we?
OPA90 established area committees of federal, state and local stakeholders and charged them with developing oil spill response plans.
Tampa's area committee completed the first ACP in 1993. The last major revision in 2000 capped a six-year, multiagency effort to convert the massive paper plan into an online electronic management tool with hot links to critical maps and data accessible to anyone with a laptop and modem. "When a spill occurs, you can go into the ACP and identify all the resources at risk, what needs to be protected, what equipment's available and who's got it," says Rossbach.
Vessels and facilities also are required to maintain and test hazardous spill response plans, and subject to unannounced drills by the Coast Guard. These mini-ACPs include emergency contacts and specify the amount of equipment companies must have on hand. Many of them contract with commercial oil spill response organizations whose business is to guarantee delivery of specialized equipment within 24 to 72 hours.
The Coast Guard is required to conduct worst case spill drills every three years, mobilizing agencies, industries and experts to test coordination and execution of response through the ACP. They may be Coast Guard sponsored or industry led, as were last year's spill drill by SeaRiver Maritime and a 1999 drill led by Florida Power & Light.
Pre-positioned boom equipment located in trailers at Coast Guard stations in St. Petersburg, Cortez and Sand Key is just a fraction of the region's first response arsenal. Rossbach estimates that there is about 100,000 feet of boom in various hands around Tampa Bay. And that's only a small part of the specialized equipment that outside oil spill response companies are under contract to deliver to Tampa Bay within hours of a spill.
The Coast Guard also has a large skimmer system at Port Manatee that can extract and store up to 28,000 gallons of oily water in a little over two hours before being towed to shore and emptied.
But all the equipment in the world is futile, say planners, unless you have the staging areas, know-how and personnel to deploy it quickly, making an updated and rigorously tested ACP all the more vital.
Recent congressional appropriations, designed to bolster port security, could include enhancements to Tampa Bay's existing vessel traffic and information system, improving navigation on the increasingly busy nautical superhighway. The Coast Guard and the port community are discussing how best to spend the money.
Balancing several pluses are concerns about Tampa Bay's onwater firefighting capability, which remains unchanged since 1993, despite significant growth in shipping and cruise activity. The Tampa Fire Department's two small fireboats were no match for the fire aboard the Ocean 255.
"We didn't have nearly enough pumping capability, or the height or reach, to fight the fire effectively," said Tampa Fire Department Captain Bill Wade. Without the aid of borrowed landing craft from the Army Reserve and barges that ferried fire trucks to the scene, the fire might have breached other fuel compartments aboard ship or fractured the hull, sending millions of gallons of fuel into the bay. Remarkably, the fire consumed less than 20% of the 8 million gallons aboard the Ocean 255, and just 33,000 gallons of jet fuel were spilled.
But fires at sea, while dramatic, are rare, and most ships are designed to contain them.
The Tampa Fire Department is researching fire-fighting capabilities at like-size ports receiving similar types of hazardous cargo, and will be making recommendations to Mayor Pam Iorio within six months. "We've maxed out our capability and we have to figure out how to proceed from here." A new fireboat could cost anywhere from $1.5 to $4 million.
|
