Birds in grave danger from oil spill

Migrating birds stopping in the oil-drenched San Francisco Bay are at great risk of dying. As of yesterday, 590 dead birds have been collected. Out of 804 collected alive, 244 were washed and 105 had died or were euthanized. (Kay 2007). Thousands more will probably die in the wild after coming in contact with the thick bunker fuel accidentally dumped last week. (Kay 2007)

The San Francisco hosts 1.6 million shorebirds annually. The majority of these visitors stay for the winter. This environmental disaster couldn’t have happened at a worst time. The migrating birds include 700,000 waterfowl and 300,000 seabirds. (Kay 2007)

Only experienced people should handle these oily birds and there is a shortage of competent folks for the job. An untrained person might scare the bird away and lose any hope of saving it. (Kay 2007)

When the oil spill initially happened, about 50 workers could have cleaned up the oil quickly. Unfortunately, there were only 18 workers available locally from the clean-up company’s three area locations. One worker with almost 35 years experience in oil clean up arrived in town at midnight on Wednesday but wasn’t put to work until 5 a.m. on Thursday. (Fimrite 2007)

“By the time I got there and went to work, (the oil) had spread out all over everywhere,” he said to Chronicle writer Peter Fimrite. The company is charge of the clean-up is Marine Spill Response. This non-profit company is primarily funded by oil companies. (Fimrite 2007)

Admiral Thad Allen, who replaced the fumbling Mike Brown after the Katrina disaster, told C.W. Nevius of the San Francisco Chronicle that there was no reason for this accident to occur. Unfortunately, human error or not, spills will happen. And when they do, an environmental disaster will follow. (Nevius 2007)

Within an hour of the spill, city workers showed up in a fireboat and were told that they weren’t needed. After the news was out with photos of oil-drenched birds, local volunteers showed up to help and they were also told to leave. Allen said that everyone should have been utilized. (Nevius 2007)

“Nothing hurts you more in a response than to have people with passion, energy and commitment, and to have them turned away,” Allen said to Nevius. He also said that this fumbled response won’t happen again. (Nevius 2007)

Mayor Gavin Newsom told Nevius, “The admiral has been spectacular. As soon as he arrived, we had a new sense of control.”

Hopefully Allen is right. Accidents will happen and we must be prepared to immediately confront the problem rather than waiting. Officials waited 13 hours to get the news out that the spill was 58,000 gallons instead of 140 (Nevius 2007), they waited before sending out trained personnel and they collected contact information rather than training volunteers on the spot (Arnoldy 2007). During this stalling, hundreds perhaps thousands of birds died drenched in oil trying in vain to fly away from the chaos.

See these videos for more on the environmental impacts from this oil spill.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cy2mRq8Ey0

Bibliography

Arnoldy, Ben, “Oil-spill helpers galore, but limits on their use,” Christian Science Monitor; 13 Nov. 2007, Vol. 99 Issue 243, p1-11.

Fimrite, Peter, “RESPONSE: Workers say more help is needed,” San Francisco Chronicle, 15 Nov. 2007.

Kay, Jane, “A splash of oil means likely death on winter journey,” San Francisco Chronicle, 15 Nov. 2007.

Nevius, C.W., “LESSONS: Mistakes aplenty to learn from,” San Francisco Chronicle, 13 November 2007, A11