November 9, 2007
San Francisco Oil Spill
I am not sure why this story is getting so little national news coverage, but it is huge. On Wednesday, 11/07, a container ship (Cosco Busan) rammed the Bay Bridge. An estimated 58,000 gallons of bunker oil spilled into the bay. Response to the splii was reportedly slow, and only 9,500 gallons have been contained. Meanwhile, wild life are dying from the spill.
Sixteen beaches had been closed as of the time of the SF Gate article. The spill is not even close to containment, and this is migration time for many birds.
The SF Gate has a pictorial essay of the spill at this link. This includes a video of the spill.
Posted by rowan at November 9, 2007 9:23 AM | [eMail this article!] |Unfortunately, there is little hope for the oil covered seabirds of San Francisco Bay.
In 2002 I witnessed and produced a documentary on the Prestige oil spill in northern Spain, the worst environmental disaster in european history and bigger than the Exxon Valdez oil spill. Despite best efforts by SEO Birdlife workers to recover and clean the oil covered seabirds, of the thousands hand washed birds, SEO's own studies showed that few if any survived in the months following. The estimated total of birds that died in that oil spill was over 300,000. The damage to the marine environment was incalculable as the oil was not contained and spread across thousands of kilometers of coastline from Spain to France, Portugal and the UK. The sunken hull of the Prestige continues leaking oil today from deep beneath the sea. See video clips of oil spill stock footage damage on our website at www.AdventureImagery.com/oil-spill, including SEO Birdlife volunteers cleaning the birds by hand.
Hopefully the recent oil spill in the San Francisco Bay area will not affect too much of the wildlife there, especially since it is my home as well. On the bright side, at least it was a small spill in comparison, spilling "only" 58,000 gallons versus 20,000,000 gallons from the Prestige. The most important factor is the containment, and it sounds like it will be controlled quickly and effectively versus the very delayed action and poor job done in Spain.
Posted by: AdventureImagery.com at November 10, 2007 7:08 AMWe are trying to pick up where the media has left off with some good old blogosphere coverage on out Professional Maritime blog. Not national coverage but we are trying to do our part/
Posted by: Captain John at November 11, 2007 11:29 PMHallo,
we have a new working and tested technology for cleaning water and beach in cases of oil disasters.
Small plant in a container is finished to work.
This system take all toxic parts and oil in the system.
After using you can use Syncarbon like a good coal for heating systems, without problems for the environment.
Here the a short video on youtube how it works.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZ1C4XpFawo
If it interesting for you, I can send more information's about this.
Best regards
Andreas Tausch
MACON GmbH
Glindenberger Weg 1
D-39126 Magdeburg
Germany
Tel.: +49 (0) 391 507 75 62
Fax: +49 (0) 391 507 75 59
Mobil: +49 (0) 178 805 7662
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