Oil-spill timeline not yet disclosed

By Craig Welch and Ian Ith
Seattle Times staff reporters

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Even though news of last Thursday's spill from an alert tugboat captain reached on-call Ecology officials at 1:41 a.m., it was after 8 a.m. on that foggy morning when county emergency managers, Tacoma fire officials and some private-response crews were notified.

It was another hour or more before work boats began corralling and slurping the oil off the water.

"I can't even fathom what transpired between [the spill being reported] and the time we were officially notified, at 8:28 a.m.," said Ken Parrish, emergency-operation-services manager for Pierce County. "We'd had an inkling there was a spill [even earlier] because the television news was picking up on it at first light."

Ecology and Coast Guard officials insist they won't publicly share what happened in those first hours until they've done a full-blown review — which typically takes months.

And given the darkness and drippy conditions that night, it's not clear whether much else could have been done to contain the syrupy, 1,000-gallon mess before it stretched into ecologically sensitive areas like Vashon and Maury Islands' Quartermaster Harbor.

But even Ecology staff members maintain that speedy notification is a key element to controlling a spill, and they acknowledge that the initial attack on last week's spill — the second, out-of-control spill on the Sound in a year — highlights some fundamental limitations in spill-response capability.

That has left some residents and government officials wondering how well the region could handle a more significant dump of oil.

"I have been a broken record with our folks," Ecology Director Linda Hoffman said. "I want us thinking about leaving no stone unturned. ... We're as concerned as residents that the next one could be a whole lot bigger."

Oil-spill experts agree that the sooner responders get on the water the better their chances of getting the material under control before it thins and disperses. Since no one owned up to this spill, crews didn't know the amount, or type, of oil or how long it had been on the water.

"Once a spill hits the water, it's moving, and those first two hours are your best chance for containment," said Ron Holcomb, a spill responder with Ecology's southwest regional office.
 
Experts also agree immediate coordination is important: "Notification is the key, of course, to any spill," said Paul O'Brien, who was Ecology's on-scene coordinator of the spill beginning around 8 a.m. "You have to be notified and start notifying. It's about shared responsibility. Shared decision-making."

But that shared decision-making appeared to get off to a slow start, at least with some potential cleanup allies.

Richard Wright, who works with Clean Sound Cooperative, the oil industry's spill-response crew, said he didn't receive a call from the state until about 9 that morning. His workers donned respirators and got on the water with boats that have special sensors to detect petroleum hydrocarbons and potentially explosive gases.

Given the weather and darkness, Wright's not sure earlier notification would have helped. "We might have been able to stage stuff sooner, but you have to decide if sending people into the fog is worth it," he said. "Would I be willing to be a bit more aggressive on a big spill? Probably, but there are limits."

Gary Steinhoff, deputy operations chief at the Tacoma Fire Department, said he doesn't believe his agency was called until 9 a.m. Had he been notified earlier and had staff available, workers might have been able to get the agency's 72-foot fire boat, complete with radar, infrared and night-vision gear, going to at least take a look, he said.

Last week's incident started when tugboat captain Bill Sibbett called the lead ship-traffic control operation on Puget Sound, saying he'd seen thick black oil on the water. He was told to call the Coast Guard in Seattle, which took his report and told him to call the National Response Center for oil spills.

That response center automatically faxed a description of the incident to state emergency-management officials at Camp Murray, where the duty officer is responsible for calling the Coast Guard and Ecology. Those calls were made at 1:41 a.m., said Parrish, of Pierce County. The state call was routed to the on-call Ecology spill-response officer.

Shortly after 2 a.m., Sibbett got two calls in quick succession, one from a sleepy-sounding man from the Department of Ecology, and another person from the National Response Center.

"I was really having the sense that they were wanting a corroborating report before they did anything."

If a ship reports spilling its load, it is required immediately to call in cleanup crews who would start assessing the damage. But if a spill is reported to Ecology, the state on-call folks are forced to make a series of judgment calls to gauge whether the spill is large or small, and whether it is worth calling in assessment and cleanup crews, Holcomb said.

"Every month we average about 150 spill calls, and we're going out on about 95 of those," said Holcomb, who was called to the incident himself about 8 a.m. that first day. "A trigger for us is 25 gallons; at that point, we're definitely looking to assess damage to the environment. In the case of oil on the water, in the night, and a boat just went through and saw some oil, and we've not heard of any other spill — all you have is this observation ... it's a tough call."

That's why, in the aftermath of December's 4,800-gallon oil spill near Richmond Beach, Ecology officials determined that they needed to do a better job of coordinating with organizations that have helicopters with infrared technology, according to an independent review of the state's response.

"Many successful infrared (IR) detections of oil slicks during hours of darkness have been made," the report states.

But the only Coast Guard helicopter with that capability is in Oregon, and while the King County Sheriff's Office has helicopters with infrared capabilities, cooperative working agreements between the state and King County haven't been made, said Linda Pilkey-Jarvis, who coordinates Ecology's spill-contingency planning.

Still, even some independent experts insist the technology is not a panacea.

"If you do it at night, you still have to have somebody on the surface confirming it," said Mike LaTorre, with Marine Spill Response Corp. Plus, he said, the technology operates on the difference in heat between oil and water, and the thinner the sheen, the harder that difference will be to discern.

Sibbett said he went about his business later that morning of hauling barges up and down the Sound. By about 7 a.m., he was headed toward Blake Island. As he moved through Dalco Passage, off the Tahlequah ferry dock on southern Vashon, he hit the oil again. This time, he said, it took about four miles to clear it. He said the fog had lifted somewhat, and he could see that the sheen had not yet hit the beach but was about 100 yards off shore.

"It was particularly distressing," he said. "With a mile-long boom, they could have easily held it off."

Craig Welch: 206-464-2093 or cwelch@seattletimes.com