U.S. Prosecutors Start Investigating Oil Spill

Workers clean up the oil on the beach.

From: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/13/us/13spill.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/09/us/09spill.html?fta=y

By Carolyn Marshall

The United States prosecutors are beginning to investigate an oil spill that happened in San Francisco Bay. It occurred on Wednesday when a South Korean vessel, Cosco Busan, owned by Regal Stone bumped with the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. About 58.000 gallons of oil spilled from the ship killing thousands of birds and causing twenty-five beaches to close.

Coast Guard officials said their investigation showed that the oil spill was caused by human error. The National Transportation Safety Board questioned four men who were on the ship when the accident happened. One of them said, “We gave immediate notice to the government agencies, including the Coast Guard that a spill had occurred. But it was over an hour before they responded.” However, the Coast Guard officials did not agree with what he said. In their opinion, the Coast Guard responded to the spill immediately. The crew of the cargo ship might face the criminal charges.

The authorities said they did not see much of oil concentration to be skimmed after they flew over the polluted area after few days. We need more ships and volunteers to clean up.