Oil Coral and Sewage

San Francisco Bay is still smeared with more than 40,000 gallons of ships fuel that spilled from the China Overseas Shipping Corporation ship Busan, which hit a bridge piling and split open one of its fuel tanks. I listened on NPR to frantic volunteers trying to help clean up some of the 58,000 gallons that escaped the ship's side a few days ago, and one of the bright sparks suggested something needs to be done to prevent a re-occurrence.

The last such San Francisco Bay accident occurred in 1988, an incident I can't even recall to be honest, and considering the amount of ship's traffic in the Bay its amazing this doesn't happen more often. In the 21st century I find it weird that Chevron has a massive refining plant in urban Richmond, what was once wild East Bay boondocks. The potential for catastrophe is ever present, and the fact that ships aren't crashing all the time is a testament to human ingenuity.

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Just last week federal officials at Fort Jefferson National Park were trying to figure out how much damage a Bahamian freighter had done to the corals after it chose to anchor illegally in the National Park. It struck me as odd, because a century ago that was precisely the Dry Tortugas' purpose- a safe haven in heavy weather for passing ships. The Fort overlooks a deep basin of water, more than 50 feet deep surrounded by islets and reefs. Nowadays the idea is to allow natural growth to flourish in the old shipping haven, and anchoring is not allowed to wreck the coral growth. Interestingly the Park has also become a marine nursery, a place where fish species are allowed to grow and multiply allowing them to be reintroduced to waters where they have been fished to extinction. The federally funded Park 70 miles west of Key West is a national resource though not directly a commercial one.

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The recent report stating unequivocally that human sewage is killing the coral reef in the Keys has prompted more discussion about the federal mandate (unfunded so far) to have the Keys completely sewered by 2010. Everyone knows that's not going to happen on schedule, and switching homeowners from cesspits (that filter nothing in the limestone rock they are built in) to proper sewage treatment is going to cost about $10,000 per household, so thats another source of concern. The hope is that the feds will cough up some cash, but other perhaps more resilient locals argue that we don't deserve federal funds because its our shit, as they so eloquently put it. However it is everyone's reef, and I'd be as sorry to see it destroyed, as I am to see the beaches of San Francisco Bay getting covered in oil. I'm glad my federal dollars are helping with that clean up.

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One nation, all clean and tidy.