SAN FRANCISCO (Map, News) - Ship fuel cleanup efforts after the Cosco Busan struck the Bay Bridge early this month were guided for two hours by incorrect information on the direction of the slick as it spread in heavy fog around the Bay.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration provided emergency workers with predictions of the trajectory of the Nov. 7 oil spill at noon that day — more than three hours after the crash, according to congressional testimony by the agency.

Emergency workers charged with containing and collecting the 58,000 gallons of fuel that gushed from the hull of the container ship relied on NOAA’s predictions of the direction of the oil spill, which two NOAA officials on Thursday admitted were inaccurate.

Federal officials are already under fire for how they handled the spill, one of the worst environmental disasters to hit the Bay in decades. After the accident, the U.S. Coast Guard told city officials and the public that hundreds of gallons of fuel had spilled, but after nightfall it updated that figure to 58,000 gallons.

The U.S. Coast Guard on Thursday defended NOAA’s faulty predictions.

“The oil didn’t cooperate with what NOAA predicted it was supposed to do,” said local Coast Guard Capt. David Swatland, who helped coordinate the federal response to the spill. “Which is Mother Nature — it’s not completely predictable.”

Heavy fog prevented emergency workers from visually surveying the slick from the air until 2 p.m., according to Steve Ricks, a vice president at the Marine Spill Response Corporation, which was hired by the container ship’s insurer to mop up the fuel.

“We couldn’t see it,” Ricks told a packed special meeting of the Harbor Safety Committee on Thursday. “We didn’t know where it was.”

NOAA Commander Gerry Wheaton testified at the meeting that new technology could help improve future predictions and improve the agency’s understanding of surface currents.

“The equipment is coming — the issue is how to integrate the information into one package,” Wheaton said. “Too much information can hamper. Not enough information can hamper.”

jupton@examiner.com

Comments from Examiner Readers

6:17 AM MST on Sat., Dec. 29, 2007 re: "Cosco Busan owners pay $80M to leave"

Examiner Reader said:
Examiner Reader said: The ship's destination was QINQDAO (Tsingtao), China, not Korea as reported above. 7 agree | 6 disagree Vote on this comment: I agree or I disagree How does one disagree with a statement of provable fact?

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6:12 AM MST on Sat., Dec. 29, 2007 re: "Tests show Bay water is clean"

Examiner Reader said:
"Additionally, state officials said that tests conducted by a California Department of Fish and Game biologist last week that found what seemed to be oil found in local herring fisheries were �inclusive,� according to Lt. Rob Roberts of the Department of Fish and Game�s Office of Spill Prevention and Response." Perhaps "inconclusive" was intended

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11:56 PM MST on Thu., Dec. 20, 2007 re: "Cosco Busan owners pay $80M to leave"

Examiner Reader said:
The ship's destination was QINQDAO (Tsingtao), China, not Korea as reported above.

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1:23 PM MST on Thu., Dec. 20, 2007 re: "Group turns oil into food for �shrooms"

Examiner Reader said:
The Coast Guard did not turn away the Fire Department boat that came to investigate. That is false. The Coast Guard did, inform them of the 100 yard safey zoen around the Cosco Busan after the incident occurred. The statement implies that the Coast Guard is covering up this incident, which is ridiculous.

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10:30 AM MST on Tue., Dec. 11, 2007 re: "Bay spill lawsuits pour in"

Examiner Reader said:
Hey, SFoff, I live in SF and yes my county did fail miserably in their response. I just wonder if Dennis Herrera is really going to believe that he will get 25K for each day of the spill from Captain Cota.

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1:50 PM MST on Tue., Dec. 4, 2007 re: "Supervisor slams response to oil spill"

SFoff said:
Dear Examiner reader (first grade level, apparently)12:40pm. There was no mention of S.F. being the only county affected by the spill. The article was from a San Francisco Newspaper, regarding San Francisco's response to the oil spill. Not very obscure. It's all clear in context. Nobody was wondering why SF. "was not kept in the loop". He is questioning why S.F. did not enter the loop of it's own accord, considering how much "training and partnership" had been established. Are we supposed to be happy with our particular cities response because your county also failed miserably to do anything in time to prevent this problem? And BTW, S.F. is not the center of the Universe, just the Solar System, but thanks for the exaggeration!

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12:40 PM MST on Tue., Dec. 4, 2007 re: "Supervisor slams response to oil spill"

Examiner Reader said:
... and San Francisco was the only city, the only county affected by this spill. It seems that SF is to self-centered in this incident, wondering why it was not kept in teh loop. It seems that many other cities and counties were affected by this incident. way to go SF. Show you true colors. If ross Mirkirami wants to be mayor in 2012 then he should just come out and proclaim that San Francisco is in fact, the center of the universe. Then he will get my vote

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12:00 PM MST on Tue., Dec. 4, 2007 re: "Supervisor slams response to oil spill"

Examiner Reader said:
Seems strange that we would be knocking ourselves up for something we had little control over and had misleading info about. One would think you can rely on the Coast Guard to provide accurate info, since this IS their jurisdiction, but to get the info wrong hours later and even when others are pointing out that it's a LARGE spill (and to ignore this emergency) seems unconscionable. This, to me, should be about the ship crashing into the bridge tower and the bungled response of the Coast Guard, their effect on the greater Bay Area and effective preventive measures.

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9:34 PM MST on Thu., Nov. 29, 2007 re: "Waters now safe, fishing to resume"

Examiner Reader said:
Its my understanding two-thirds of the 58,000 gallons of oil is unaccounted for and will remain so. The water quality of San Francisco Bay was questionable before this event. Some sort of blanket statement regarding the "safeness" of the bay water seems a bit dubious to me.

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9:32 AM MST on Thu., Nov. 29, 2007 re: "Bay Bridge bumper bits lost"

Examiner Reader said:
Having said that black made it harder to find the missing pieces of plastic lumber, they're going to use black again for the replacement?!! Foolish.

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11:34 AM MST on Mon., Nov. 26, 2007 re: "Birds death toll continues climb following oil spill"

Examiner Reader said:
Very self indulgent of you to equate an oil spill dead birds and your situation. Get over it already.

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