Cosco Buson Oil Spill

Members of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB)

Barry Strauch, one of NTSB's staff investigators

Members of the investigating team presented their findings to the Board

Whose mistakes caused the freight ship Cosco Busan to collide with the San-Francisco Oakland Bay Bridge spilling 53,000 gallons of oil into the Bay? Nearly 15 months after the spill, The National Transportation and Safety Board (NTSB) held a day-long hearing on this question on Wednesday.

NTSB member, Debbie Hersman, was the “member on scene” in San Francisco overseeing the investigation. The case has involved plenty of finger-pointing with the pilot of the freighter blaming the Coast Guard and the ship operating company, Fleet Management Ltd blaming the pilot. Criticizing the narrow focus on pilot error, Hersmsan said, “I believe the pilot bears the lion’s share of the blame for the collision with the Bay Bridge but there are other people who are involved. While the pilot lined up the Cosco Busan on a collision course with the Bay Bridge, the VTS (Coast Guard’s Vessel Traffic Service) watch standers watched it happen.”

She said the NTSB investigation itself was hampered by the delay caused by the Coast Guard’s failure to assess the magnitude of the spill. “It failed to correct that gross inaccuracy throughout that first day even in the face of overwhelming evidence of a much larger spill.”

Examining the performance of the pilot and the master of the ship, Rob Jones an NTSB staff investigator, from the office of Marine Safety concluded that poor communication led to the accident. Another investigator Barry Strauch focused on the cultural differences between pilot and master that added to the poor communication.

Hersman reset the clock on the investigator’s conclusions calling into question the Coast Guard’s role once again. She said, “I think this accident happened when they left the dock. They should never have left the dock under those conditions.” There was dense fog in the bay that morning and four other ships had delayed passage and moved to anchorage instead to sit out the bad weather.

Various issues such as the pilot’s medical condition at the time of the accident, the role of the VTS and the environmental response that followed the spill were discussed at the hearing. The NTSB is expected to release a final report with its findings and recommendations later on Wednesday.

This piece is also available on the KGO-TV website.

MORE ON THE BLACK BUCK

I was presented with a request by a reader to delete the photographs of dead deer and black buck on the IIT Madras campus from my blog. The person who supplied the photographs to this reader, wants them taken off because he or she does not agree with me.

The dilemma was - this is my blog and I am entitled to write what I want and was given the photographs. Yet that does not make the photographs mine and now the person who gave them wants 'their' photographs removed.

So what I have decided to do this time is to remove them because I did not take them in the first place.

The people at IIT who introduced me to whats happening to the deer and black buck inside are disappointed that I am swayed by Ranjit Daniels argument of cutting down 30 hectares of trees. But I think I would go with a scientist with 30 years experience than a layperson.

Ranjith Daniels says, "My methods are not based on a whim. A lot of effort has gone into this. Let people be assured of that. Whats destroyed the IIT campus is the Prosopis Juliflora tree. Now we are trying to clear two or three hectares on an experimental basis. World over, loss of habitat is the biggest problem faced by conservationists."

Its no different with the black buck and thats why they are dealing with that threat first.

But people have argued that why not deal with the solvable problems first - like controlling traffic and construction activity? Ranjith acknowledges that traffic is a problem and signs will be put up to request people to drive slowly. But he says that these fears of traffic and construction are not the biggest threat and steps are being taken to ensure that the black buck isn't allowed to go extinct.

As far as the birds and other life in the trees that he plans to cut is concerned, he says, "The Juliflora has not allowed anything else to grow. Birds nests are not just in trees but in bushes also and these trees have destroyed the biodiversity on the campus."

DEATH AT IIT-M

Inside one of the country’s most prestigious institutions of technical education – death is not a very uncommon occurrence. The blackbuck population inside the forests of IIT-Madras has come down to almost 12 and the population of spotted deer hovers around 150.

“The spanking new Himalaya mess has come up on Black buck habitation. There was no real need for that. They could’ve just had smaller messes around the different blocks”, says one concerned insider at IIT. Another lady says, “They came up with this crazy idea of making laws with Korean grass. That’s not what deer eat! Also, there is so much construction debris lying around that the animals are getting injured and dying.”

Feral dogs are another menace inside IIT and they have killed quite a few spotted deer. But the wildlife department officials seem unconcerned about this and are cooking up , what to me sound like excuses. Ashish Shrivastava, one of the wildlife officers says, “If we try to remove the feral dogs some people protest saying the dogs are their pets and we should not remove them.” Pursue the point further by suggesting that they are afterall the wildlife department and can’t be held hostage to peoples pet fancies, he has no answers.

Removing these animals to the neighboring Guindy National Park is not a solution because black bucks have such weak hearts and are so timid that they cannot survive such an upheaval.

(I have since updated this blog with a more informed opinion.)

04/03/07