Major Fuel Spill Reported in Alaska

[leftchick]

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/ats-ap_us12dec10,0,616604.story?coll=ny-leadnationalnews-headlines

~snip~

ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- A major spill of dense, viscous fuel from a freighter that ran aground was menacing sensitive wildlife habitat in the Aleutian Islands, but finding the six crew members lost at sea remained a priority -- despite their diminishing odds for survival.

Thousands of gallons of heavy bunker fuel and diesel spilled from a soybean freighter that was ripped clean in half off the shore of Unalaska Island. Near a wildlife refuge, the area is home to sea lions, harbor seals, sea otters, tanner crabs, halibut and kelp beds.

But with resources scarce in the remote and harsh area 800 miles southwest of Anchorage, the search for the missing took precedence over the environmental threat.

"There are only so many boats and so many planes, and they have been directed to the search for life," Kurt Fredriksson, acting commissioner for the Department of Environmental Conservation, said Thursday.

Coast Guard rescue crews searched into the night, with officials saying they had not given up on finding someone alive. Estimates put survival in the 43-degree waters of the Bering Sea at about three hours.

[skylarmae]

1. oh yea! Now lets start drilling in Anwar...

but, alas, not to worry, JESUS is coming (any day now)....

[aikido15]

3. LOL

Jesus is coming my ASS!:eyes:

[Brundle_Fly]

2. thank god we got rid of all the

environmental standards, otherwise heads might have rolled.

ugh.

I can't take much more.

[neweurope]

4. Yeah. Since it's all messed up now anyway they might as well

start drilling, right? And who needs the environment when they're about to bring armageddon on?

I think I will have to stop reading DU and other blogs. Put blindfolds on and stuff something in my ears. I'm desolate and I cannot take much more. Where is one to find the courage to keep fighting this? Depression generates no strength.

[countryjake]

5. This is an absolute disaster...here's another link...

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/home/

The ship was snapped in two & it's the worst kind of fuel to clean up. It happened practically on shore, so that refuge hasn't much chance.

[leftchick]

9. Photo.....

Thank you for the link. And welcome to DU!




The two halves of the Malaysian cargo ship Selendang Ayu were leaking heavy fuel oil after the freighter lost power and ran aground Wednesday night.

[leftchick]

10. More from the article....

God, this is just awful... :(




"This has the potential to be the largest spill since the Exxon Valdez, but we don't know that yet," said Greg Siekaniec, head of the Alaska Maritime Refuge, which includes the area of the spill. "There's a sheen at least a mile long that's starting to disperse, and the pieces of the ship are resting on the bottom 50 yards apart. We just don't know how many of its holds have been breached."

State and federal biologists who flew over the accident site on the west side of Unalaska Island yesterday reported a potential nightmare for wildlife, with dozens of shore birds, and cormorants and sea otters already swimming through the oiled water.

But with weather preventing even Coast Guard cutters from nearing the wrecked freighter, and with forecasts calling for 20-foot seas and 40-knot winds today, Alaskan officials already were preparing for a long, drawn-out cleanup.

"What I'm looking at is a situation, and pictures, that are pretty bad," said Kurt Fredriksson, acting director of Alaska's Department of Environmental Conservation. "We're in a very tough weather window. The future does not look bright. We're looking at weeks if not months."


Leslie Pearson, head of oil-spill response for the state of Alaska, echoed that forecast.

"This is probably the most remote big spill we've ever had," she said.

[hatrack]

22. Well, with 20 to 30-foot seas and winds of 40 knots & higher . . .

I'd say that every fucking hold and bunker on the ship is going to be breached in the next 48 hours, with all due respect to Greg at the Alaska Maritime Refuge.

Don't worry, though, it's just bunker fuel. It's just the nastiest, densest and most viscous goo you ever tried to clean up.

Don't worry, though, it's just seals and sea otters and sealions and puffins and gulls and kittiwakes and (fill in name of species) that get to gobble lots and lots of oil for years to come. :mad:

[countryjake]

17. I wasn't sure if we were allowed to post newspaper pics...

Thanks for the welcome!

[VivaKerry]

6. Sorry, but 6 humans takes precedence over environmental threat???

If only I rated that high on the scale!!! Jesus.

[Brundle_Fly]

7. where is the MSM?

Been waiting for an hour and scouring the web....

this has been going on since wednesday???

[countryjake]

14. I think the engines failed Tuesday...not sure when it finally ran aground

Seems like news in Washington has been talking about it all week. We watched the rescue on Wednesday & the helicoptor crash, but of course, everyone knew it was gonna get serious, with those high seas & it so close to shore.

What does MSM stand for? I haven't seen a thing about it on any national news, probably cause the Coast Guard was right there & involved. They put out some hokey call yesterday to equip booms along all tanker ships (how timely), something that was suggested long ago. Check into the Seattle PI link below, post #13, (click on "local") the article about the Coast Guard suggestion is placed ABOVE the current disaster article on the front page.

[countryjake]

8. There's not even any access to the area by land...

just steep, rocky shoreline. Supposedly, that's why there's a holdup on any containment effort...not enough boats there yet to start hauling the booms. They've been searching for those six people for two days now, cause the helicoptor crashed only about a thousand yards offshore & they were in their survival suits, but the weather is not cooperating. Here's a pic of what the spill is ruining...

[driver8]

11. I used to live in the Aleutians...this is sad, sad, sad...

I lived on Adak island in the middle of the chain when I was a kid. The weather was brutal, but the island is beautiful as are the beaches. We used to see lots of wildlife around -- otters, seals, eagles, fish.

This really makes me sad.

[theHandpuppet]

12. Let me guess...

This was another single-hulled oil freighter allowed into the waters adjoining our most precious wildlife habitats.

You know, our own lawmakers could put a stop to this, at the very least requiring freighters such as this to be double-hulled -- but they won't. Money talks. That's all that matters. MONEY. MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY.

Anyone have more info on this freighter and who actually owns it? The link in the original message doesn't work for me.

[countryjake]

13. Yet another link...

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/203253_freighter10.html

I put up a different one in post #5.


I have friends who've fished out of Dutch Harbor for decades. There was a pretty bad spill up there not many yrs. ago that they've just recently recovered from...this will devastate the tribe; they live off the salmon.

[Cooley Hurd]

15. If they would build these ships with more hull protection...

...this might not happen so readily. A triple hull would help (but that means less space to carry oil, I guess...:grr:).

[countryjake]

16. This was a soybean freighter, not a tanker...

doesn't make a helluva lot of difference to the wildlife tho. They're dead either way! The ship broke in two.

[amandabeech]

19. What was a soybean freighter doing northwest of the Aleutians

in December?

The link doesn't work for me, and I cannot figure out what the origin/destination of the soybeans was.

This does not appear to be on any major shipping lane.

[countryjake]

20. Heading for China from Tacoma, WA

Try the links in posts #5 & #13, they should still work.
If not here's another:

Kiro7 News from Seattle WA

http://www.kirotv.com/news/3984180/detail.html


(snip)

Mark Hodges, a trajectory analyst with NOAA's hazardous materials division in Seattle, said winds were blowing from the northwest, which would push the fuel onto shore.

"We're waiting until the search and rescue operation is over until we start the pollution phase," Hodges said. "The oil is right now the least of their concerns."

Tug boats failed in the rough seas to attach tow lines to the drifting freighter on Tuesday and both of the vessel's anchors broke in shallow waters.

The second anchor broke after temporarily halting the freighter eight-tenths of a mile from shore, prompting the final evacuation shortly before it began breaking up.

"They struck something when they were in shallow water as the anchor was dragging," Chief Petty Officer Darrell Wilson said. "The master said it was taking on water. As the evening progressed ... the vessel split in two."

The two pieces were grounded about 200 yards apart near the shore, Wilson said.

The Coast Guard was moving containment equipment to the scene and a Coast Guard strike force group that specializes in spills was en route from Sacramento, Calif.

[Massachusetts]

18. One

more tanker from Hell.:mad: :wtf:

[leftchick]

21. Update:Deadly shipwreck now a major Alaska oil spill

http://preview.msnbc.msn.com/id/6684005/


<snip>
'Not easy to clean up'
The freighter was carrying 483,000 gallons of heavy bulk fuel and another 21,000 gallons of diesel fuel.

While small compared to the 11 million gallon Exxon Valdez disaster in 1989, the marine spill is thought to be the largest in Alaska since then.


Fredriksson hoped the rough seas could help break up some of the oil and disperse it to the open sea. “That may be a good thing, in terms of shoreline impact,” he said.

<snip>
“The fuel we’re dealing with is No. 6 fuel oil. It’s a very dense, viscous oil and it’s not easy to clean up,” Giguere said. “This is particularly persistent. It’s high viscosity and it tends to remain on the surface. It’s not good stuff.”

[countryjake]

23. Saturday Update on the Spill

MICHAEL EDENFIELD / AP
Heavy bunker fuel from the broken freighter Selendang Ayu washes up Thursday on Unalaska Island in the Aleutians.

From the Seattle Times

Brutal Weather Slows Alaska Freighter Search, Spill Cleanup


From the Seattle PI

Fears of Oil Spill Disaster Grow

Dramatic Rescue of Ship Attempted in Brutal Seas

Offshore Fisheries Could Feel Some Indirect Effects

[countryjake]

24. Still not much action being taken...weather & red tape slow response

Sunday update from Seattle Times


Winds, seas thwart effort to assess spill; Search for 6 suspended

[senegal1]

25. Man I have been there on Unalaska and in Dutch Harbor

I bet if it was a Malaysian ship that the crew wouldn't have any or functional survival suits and in that case they are gone. I know the Japanese and Korean fishing ships I was on had none. I cry for the Bald Eagles and Kodiak bears. Too sad.

[countryjake]

26. Those six guys dying is why the spill response is so cautious

Heck, they've already lost one Coast Guard helicopter, knocked right out of the sky by a forty foot wave. At first, they thought some of them were in survival suits, which is why they maintained the rescue for so long, but yesterday someone finally managed to speak with & understand one of the survivors, who said there were only three suits on the whole freighter. Those poor men were long gone, probably fifteen minutes after they hit the water.

We should be crying for the entire Sea & the Aleutian chain; Jacque Cousteau said this week what a misery this will be for the ocean, not just the islands, since that type of oil sinks to the bottom & pollutes the food chain for years after. Nothing will go unaffected.

I'm getting angrier by the day...they've been trying to alter that shipping lane for a long time, since it's not well regulated, but nobody seems to care about a bunch of islands in such a cold locale. (Doesn't rank in tourist-trade value) Many line-boats from the Northwest fish out of there, so this will hurt a few states & is not just the "sinking" of one boat. And with the spill so inaccessible it will be very hard to organize a clean-up...bet they won't even make a dent in it until next Spring.

We just had a bad fuel spill here in Puget Sound this Fall & I'm wondering if this might not be the same ship.

[senegal1]

27. I don't think they will ever really clean it up... not with the general

conditions there. By the way not surprised to hear about lack of suits. Didn't hear about the helicopter tho. Seems like typically bad seas for this time of year. Forget that king crab now from Dutch. Didn't know there was a trade route through there .. originally found it somewhat surprising that a ship with soybeans would be going through there. I think someone explained it in a post above. Very sorry for your home islands and tribe. Beautiful place in its own rocky windswept way. At least what little I saw of it.

[countryjake]

28. It's called the Great Circle Route

Last week, I read a good article written by some environmentalist & I can't remember either his name or where I read it, but his study was about this very same area & the standards & conditions of the ships which crawl through the Aleutian chain.

The article was pre-Selendang Ayu disaster, but he spoke of the impossibility of conducting an efficient clean-up, due to the landscape & weather. He was proposing either regulations equipping every freighter with its own containment boom, or caching emergency booms along the shorelines they pass, for quick & immediate access in an event just such as this. I believe he was of the Qawalangin Tribe, native to Unalaska Island, & it's chilling how he so accurately forsaw the events playing out in the past week. And heartbreaking to realize the dire impact he also predicted will most likely occur.

I've never even been to Alaska. Only viewed lots of home-movies taken by my fishermen pals; their base was Dutch Harbor until the late nineties, when a spill of a much smaller scale affected their livelihoods up there. It's only been a few years that fishing had gotten somewhat back to normal, & now this. I also have a good buddy in the Merchant Marine for thirty some years & he can tell stories about the industry to shiver anyone's timbers. Plus, he quit catching ships during the first Gulf War, because he refused to participate in the War Machine & ended up working on Foss Tugs, so he knows all about snagging drifting "sludge buckets", as he calls any commercial freighter, & the inevitability of one hellish mess, if the engines die close to shore.

Here's a snip of an explanation of why that freighter was up there. It's from an article at the Rense site...not sure if it's okay to link to such places here, so I just copied a bit:

"The 738-foot Selendang Ayu was loaded with soybeans and bound from Seattle to China when it lost power in the Bering Sea. The vessel was following a heavily trafficked shipping lane called the Great Circle Route, which hundreds of ships follow each month on transits between the West Coast of the United States and Asia. Part of the route cuts through the Aleutian Islands; many ships slide through Unimak Pass."