Debacle in the Bay Area

Every single thing about the recent oil spill in the San Francisco Bay makes me sick. Now it seems to have devolved into an orgy of finger-pointing: The Coast Guard didn’t warn the tanker before it hit a support of the Bay Bridge and spewed 58,000 gallons of fuel. The pilot blames the Chinese shipping company and crew, but they’re not talking. Hundreds of volunteers eager to help clean up the slick as it spread to beaches and coated wildlife were turned away in the crucial first days, and they’re angry at the government. Crabbers and fishermen, whose season has been ruined, are suing the shipping company. Emergency officials are being accused of withholding news of the spill for hours.

Yes, there has been wrongdoing and negligence, and in the coming months those at fault should be held responsible, and efforts should be taken to make sure this never happens again. But I worry that the blame game is taking attention away from the more pressing matter: cleaning up the oil itself, which is creeping out to cover more and more of California’s beautiful and vital beaches; and rescuing the animals, mostly birds, whose lives are endangered.

I wish I could be there to join the volunteers picking up gobs of oily muck—horrible as that sounds, at least I would be doing something instead of merely despairing from 3,000 miles away the besmirching of a place I hold dear.

SF Chronicle stories:

Spill closes bay beaches as oil spreads, kills wildlife

Response to fuel spill under Bay Bridge called 'unusually slow'

Coast Guard may be neglecting its maritime mission

Spill puts hundreds of thousands of migrating birds at risk

Ocean Beach closed

Google map of affected areas

How to help

(photos © San Francisco Chronicle)