Posted on 11/27/2004 7:06:00 PM PST by nypokerface
PHILADELPHIA - A tanker spilled 30,000 gallons of crude oil into the Delaware River between Philadelphia and southern New Jersey, creating a 20-mile-long slick that killed dozens of birds and threatened other wildlife, federal officials said Saturday.
Private contractors were called in to skim oil from the surface of the water and place thousands of feet of boom to contain the floating slick.
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials said 50 birds were dead from the spill, 300 others were affected and fish also were threatened. A stretch of the busy river was closed to commercial and recreational traffic while the spill was being cleaned up.
"We're working very quickly and diligently to expedite the cleanup," said Coast Guard Petty Officer John Edwards.
Two tugboats were guiding the ship to a pier Friday night when a tugboat skipper noticed the spill, said Coast Guard Capt. Jonathan Sarubbi, officer in charge of the Port of Philadelphia. The ship listed 8 degrees to the left at about the same time, he said.
The crew notified the Coast Guard and began transferring oil from the leaking tank to another tank on board. The leak was stopped within an hour.
The cause of the spill was still under investigation, Sarubbi said.
The tanker, the Athos I, registered in the Mediterranean island nation of Cyprus, was carrying 325,000 barrels of oil from Venezuela, said Jim Lawrence, a spokesman for the vessel's owner, Greek shipping company Tsakos Shipping and Trading SA.
The nearly 750-foot-long ship, built in 1983, was last out of the water for maintenance in April, Lawrence said. He said it had never before spilled oil.
It was the worst spill on the Delaware River since 1995, when strong wind pushed a tanker away from a refinery dock in West Deptford, N.J., snapping a fuel line that spilled 40,000 gallons. In 1989, a tanker ran aground near Claymont, Del., spilling 300,000 gallons of heating oil into the river.
About one million barrels of oil come through the Port of Philadelphia each day.
Hoo-boy! I can just imagine the conspiracy theories in the making. Did this state go for Kerry?
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials said 50 birds were dead from the spill, 300 others were affected and fish also were threatened.
My goodness, sounds like Iraq over here! (sarcasm)
Well good for him, he found a new job!:-)
Oil slicks and NJ go hand in hand, it's a good mix. Our rivers are the most polluted anyway, so it's no big deal. I think NJ has more superfund sites than most states and our seafood are loaded with pcb's and mercury which can not be eaten.
You mean that Trout I caught in the Passaic last year is contaminated? Say it aint so! ;-)
Didn't you notice you were pissing GREEN for a while?
Hey, if we don't get killed in Newark and Paterson by the gang bangers, there's always cancer and stress related diseases.
A: Those who jump the falls at Niagara have a pulse.
Liberals and toxic sludge just seem to go together, don't they?
Sure do, and we're full of both here in NJ
Any boat person can do the math which equals 400,000 to 600,000 gallons makes a ship that size pitch that much.
Also 30,000 gallons is about one railroad tank car.
No one could imagine that covering 40-50 miles of river.
Also #2 that tanker is past due for scrap.
20 years is very old for such a vessel.
The tug most likely damaged an already rusty rivit line by pushing in the wrong spot (which I watch them do everyday), this leveraged force popped the seam under the waterline.
All this crap over less than 700 BARRELS?
Plus the fact that the USCG is involved in the cover-up & insurance fraud.
The staging area is just down the street from me.
Every clean-up company for a thousand miles is getting in on this insurance fraud party.
First they stood around waiting for the slick to spread good and wide, then they took turns floating around pretending to do the job.
The most important fact is, all the clean-up gear was already here & in place to do the job when in happened.!
Why? 30,000 gallons is NOT 7,000 barrels, it's less than 700.
Again, do the math, for a ship of that size to list 8 degrees from centerline 500,000 gallons of oil must leave(+ or - 100,000 gallons).
Take a railroad tank car (which is the lie of the amount spilled) & place it on one side of a tanker ship of that size.
It would hardly move at all (maybe a few inches, that's all).
Have you ever noticed that the press always converts a small spill into gallons so that it seems really really big?
The amount of list in degrees per thousand barrels of oil spilled could be calculated if one knew the density of the oil, the exact position of the leaking tank, the height of the baffle walls in that tank and their position, whether or not there was equalization between tanks, the degree of angle between the leak and the starboard, bow, stern and port sides of the vessel, and the density of the buoying medium.
Otherwise, it's guesswork unless the tank can be physically measured to determine the amount of oil lost, which is exactly what they probably did in this case.
Do you realize that this amount to almost 240,000 pints??!
The Deleware River is ruined forever!
Even someone half as dumb as I am this close to the situation knows at least ten times more crude came out of that old tanker that should have been scrapped last year.
How much money was saved by getting a few last trips out of it?
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