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Enviro-Clips

Push and Pull Over Tug Regs

New regulations requiring tug boat escorts for oil tankers and barges navigating the Bay were drafted by the S.F. Bay Harbor Safety Committee this fall. Environmentalists agree the new regs are an important step forward in preventing a disastrous oil spill, but say the rules don't go far enough.

A 1990 state law mandates that the committee draft tug escort regs for the "best achievable protection" of the Bay. Marci Glazer of the Center for Marine Conservation says that under the new rules, tankers will have a 10- knot speed limit, but they are only required to have an escort capable of stopping them at six knots. She's also upset that the committee rejected a study that would have required tugs to be able to handle a "dual failure" (i.e., simultaneous loss of propulsion and steering) aboard a tanker.

The committee's Roger Peters says there's never been a documented dual failure in U.S. waters, and that providing that level of protection would cost shippers an extra $50 to $100 million annually. He says that shippers have to guard against many potential disasters, including navigation hazards, communication breakdowns and human errors. "More protection is always better. It's a question of how to wisely use our resources," he says.

The state Office of Oil Spill Prevention and Response will hold hearings on the regulations in early 1996 and make a final decision on whether or not to adopt later in the year.

A major spill is "everybody's nightmare," Glazer says, adding that nobody's going to come to San Francisco to see an oil-blackened Alcatraz. The state spill prevention office's Bud Leland says dangerous failures are quite rare. "But, as any Exxon executive would tell you, `all it takes is one,'" he says.

Contacts: Marci Glazer (415)391-6204; Harbor Safety Committee (415)441-7988; Bud Leland (916)323-4649

Fresh Fill & A Fish Kill

BayKeeper's eyes on the water and ears to the phone paid off for Estuary waters around Alameda Island this year. In the first instance, a volunteer skipper from the citizen-based watchdog group noticed some fresh fill. The group reported it to the S.F. Bay Commission, which found no record of a permit for the fill. "The only way this could have been found is by boat," says BayKeeper's Michael Lozeau. "We've been through there enough times to know what's different." The Commission contacted property owner Francis Collins, who responded by removing the 1500 cubic yards of dirt this November. In the second instance, a call came into BayKeeper's pollution hotline reporting a fish kill just off Alameda's bird sanctuary. A sign posted in the tidal zone indicated that the herbicide Rodeo had been sprayed by a shoreline homeowners' association the previous day. A BayKeeper volunteer, sent out to collect some of the 20-30 dead fish, noted that even the clams and other sedentary critters had suffered. Lozeau says this latter fact is more indicative of a chemical source than of a sudden temperature change or other cause. BayKeeper froze the fish and passed them on to regulatory agencies, which are now investigating. Lozeau says the effectiveness of such citizen watchdogging will be bolstered this January, when an official DeltaKeeper is launched from a new upstream base on the Calaveros River near Stockton.

BayKeeper (415)567-4401; Pollution Hotline (800) KEEP-BAY; DeltaKeeper (209)464-5090

California's Love Canal

"California's Love Canal" is what a coalition of Delta water users and outdoor recreation interests is calling the reopening of a 28-mile section of the San Luis Drain approved November 3. Though the purpose of the partial reopening is to separate selenium-tainted agricultural drainage water from channels serving area wetland refuges, and though officials insist this "bypass" project will be terminated if it worsens San Joaquin River water quality, Compy Compomizzo of the Citizens for Safe Drinking Water Coalition still thinks the project will just pass the pollution to wildlife, water drinkers, fisherpeople and duck hunters downriver. "That a few rich farmers can get away with murder, can put up nothing while Chevron and Shell spend millions cleaning up their selenium, makes me mad as hell," he says. His group has already collected 1500 signatures on their Ban-the-California-Love-Canal petition. "They don't even know how much selenium they're putting into our water now. How can we trust them to monitor it accurately in the future?" says Compomizzo. (510)757- 4798

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