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Oil spill cleanup was too slow, official says
By Sean P. Murphy and William P. Coughlin, Globe Staff, 6/13/1990
ROVIDENCE -- Authorities should have made a "quicker response" in collecting fuel oil spilled into Buzzards Bay when the cruise ship Bermuda Star went aground on Sunday, the region's ranking Coast Guard officer said yesterday.
Oil flowing from a hole ripped into the bottom of the Bermuda Star could have been picked up without creating a threat to the environment if proper equipment was immediately available, said Rear Adm. Richard E. Rybacki. Having missed the chance to collect 7,500 gallons of leaking oil in favorable weather conditions immediately after the grounding, authorities were forced to wait out heavy seas and high winds for the next two days, Rybacki said.
The damaged ship and its store of about 100,000 gallons of oil will remain anchored in Buzzards Bay at least until Friday while a crew of divers patches a 90-foot gash in the ship's bottom.
Additional leaking is possible during the temporary patching, officials said. The ship will then steam to New York for repair.
Rybacki said officials could have saved several hours in response time if an "adequate" inventory of equipment were available to officials on Sunday. A combination of government and private equipment was eventually used to respond to the spill.
"It was not as fast as I would have liked it," said Rybacki, Coast Guard commander of the New England region.
Rybacki, appearing at a news conference at the Coast Guard Marine Safety Office here, declined to go further in assigning responsibility. Asked whether a quicker response would have prevented 1,000 gallons of heavy oil from reaching shore on Naushon Island, Rybacki said he was not sure.
A crew of about 100 Coast Guardsmen and employees of Clean Harbors Inc. yesterday began cleaning the coast of Naushon Island.
The 617-foot Bermuda Star was carrying 680 passengers on an eight-day luxury cruise from New York to Montreal when it apparently strayed off course Sunday and ran aground in the shallow, rocky waters off West Falmouth.
After passengers were ferried to New Bedford, tugboats managed to dislodge the lightened ship at high tide, 12 hours later. Oil had been released both when the ship grounded and when it was dislodged.
The original 1,000 gallons leaked from the Bermuda Star was carried by the current to Naushon Island, near Woods Hole, where a four-mile section of coastline is now blackened with oil that has the thickness of honey. Naushon Island is a pristine, privately owned summer retreat.
The second leak of about 6,500 gallons of oil is still at sea and may come ashore anywhere along the Elizabeth Islands, which include Naushon and stretch about 25 miles into Buzzards Bay from Woods Hole, Coast Guard officials said.
An investigation into the cause of the grounding began immediately, but Rybacki yesterday said he did not know whether the Bermuda Star strayed off course due to errors made by officers on the bridge or because of equipment failure.
"Whether there was human error, I cannot tell exactly," he said. "We know it went aground under the control of the master and pilot. Whether all the equipment was working, we don't know."
Capt. Hans Lewing, the ship's master, and pilot John Neary were interviewed extensively, officials said. Both submitted to routine drug and alcohol testing, but the results were not available, Rybacki said.
Neary, of Barrington, R.I., is a licensed expert on navigating Buzzards Bay and the Cape Cape Canal. He was put aboard the Panamanian-register ed ship for passage into Massachusetts Bay in compliance with Coast Guard requirements for local pilots. Lewing and the other officers are German; the crew of about 380 is international.
The ship is operated by Bermuda Star Cruiselines Inc., of Teaneck, N.J. A representative of the company declined comment on refunding the cost of the cruise, which ranged from $1,000 to $4,000. The company provided airfare for passengers to return home on Monday.
Coast Guard Chief Warrant Officer Thomas Blair said a team of six divers tomorrow will begin patching the hole with three-quarter-inch plywood and a rubber sealant.
The divers will first assemble a bridgework of channel iron on the inside of the three breached tanks, then fasten threaded rods from the bridgework. Sections of plywood coated with the rubber sealant will then be hung on the rods and secured with wing nuts.
The patch job should take 30 hours to complete.
Rybacki said the Coast Guard will appoint a panel to study the recent occurrence of several oil spills in the waters off New Jersey, New York and New England.
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