Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
by 1969. Though bans reduced terrestrial sources of these persistent pol-
lutants, old ocean dumps were harder to tackle. Impacts on fish-eating
birds remain.
No one, of course, intended to hurt either pelicans or marine ecosys-
tems when they sank barrels of DDT or radioactive waste in the ocean of
California's coast, or allowed farm runoff and wastewater to enter local
waterways. In all cases, the convenience to humans trumped any thought
of the repercussions for the health of the region as a whole.
“We've yet to learn two lessons,” says Rainer Hoenicke, who once man-
aged regional programs testing water quality and who now runs the San
Francisco Estuary Institute. “It's a bad idea to release manmade substances
into the environment before their persistence and unintended side effects
are known; and it's a good idea to turn off the tap to the overflowing sink
before mopping the floor. To this day, thousands of substances are being
released about which we know nothing—the tap is still flowing—while we
are still cleaning up old messes.”
Spills and pollutants are much easier to contain on land than in the bay.
The bay is particularly vulnerable to oil spills because of its high volume of
marine traffic, its semi-enclosed nature, and its myriad bridges, rocks, and
other navigational hazards. Since 1984, a handful of notable spills have
sullied the bay and nearby Pacific coastline. That year, the tanker
Puerto
Rican
leaked 1.5 million gallons of oil when it broke up outside the Golden
Gate. The feather-fouling petroleum stayed mostly in the ocean but killed
an estimated 5,000 birds. In 1988, a Shell Oil storage tank spilled 420,000
gallons into sensitive wetlands near Martinez. In 1996, a ship being re-
paired at the San Francisco dry docks leaked 80,000 gallons of fuel. About
a tenth of the fuel reached the bay, spreading a sheen along shorelines
from Treasure Island to Tiburon, and oiling at least 100 birds. In Novem-
ber 2007, a 900-foot-long container ship—the
Cosco Busan
—ran into the
Bay Bridge. The collision ripped a gash in its side, and over 53,000 gallons
of bunker oil poured into the bay. In October 2009, a refueling accident of
the
Dubai Star
spilled hundreds more gallons of petroleum products. In
such a busy port, the spill list is bound to go on.
“The trouble with oil spills in San Francisco Bay is that you have the
bathtub effect,” says California League of Conservation Voters CEO War-
ner Chabot, formerly of the Ocean Conservancy. “The oil sloshes back and
forth from shoreline to shoreline. Once oil gets into the marshlands and
wetlands, it stays for many years, and it's impossible to clean up.” Chabot
