Christian A. Camerota

Not too many days ago, a very large barge named the Cosco Busan was expertly piloted into the Delta Span of the Bay Bridge here in the San Francisco Bay. The above picture is a quick glimpse of what the Bay looked like shortly afterwards. Fog and instrument malfunctions were blamed, along with a lack of dexterity on the ship’s part. And I’m sure the Bay’s waters and all the wildlife affected see that as an acceptable apology.

After all, it’s not like the pilot meant to spill 4,000…I mean, 58,000 gallons of some of the lowest grade oil imaginable into one of the hubs of wildlife in this area. It’s not like he lied about the severity of the crash or the amount of oil initially thought to have been spilled. It’s not like the subsequent investigations have a curious number of people remaining mum on the subject.

Oh…wait. Maybe he didn’t mean to spill that oil. But, certainly the rest of the things just mentioned actually happened or are in the midst of doing so.

Honestly, what the hell was this guy thinking? What the hell are we, as a species, thinking?

I know, I know. It’s really hippy and unrealistic of me to think that these sorts of tragedies can be avoided, or should not even have the potential of occurring in the first place. So, call me crunchy if you must. But, the fact that a tragedy of this magnitude can occur and people aren’t a little more outraged about it speaks to the general timidity and apathy of the population, I guess.

I would assume (maybe incorrectly) that most people would be violently angry upon hearing about this kind of thing. I know that I, for one, certainly was. I stood in front of the TV at 6:30 in the morning, listening to the news anchor sensationalize the story, and watching in horror as the helicopter’s cameraman zoomed in and out from the enormous oil slicks floating and spreading themselves like a plague over the Bay’s waters. As I watched, I could feel myself heating up and preparing to yell at the television (as I seem to find myself doing very often)…as if that would make any difference.

The weird thing was that I didn’t even realize how angry I was actually getting until I turned away from the TV and noticed that my fists were clenched. In fact, my entire body was clenched…even my brow was furrowed. And the visceral nature of my reaction surprised me.

This affront on nature and the majesty of the area in which we live, on our supposedly environmentally friendly Bay Area population, on our pocketbooks, and everything else, should damn well infuriate us. If nothing else, how come people aren’t pissed off about losing so much oil? With gas at 70 dollars a gallon or whatever it is now, what  are we doing allowing 58,000 gallons of oil to get away from us? Couldn’t we use that to fill up our Priuses?

Oh, right…we couldn’t use it in our fancy little Priuses because the oil quality is so amazingly poor. It’s basically like oil mixed with feces and woodchips, as I understand it. And, yet, this is the kind of oil that’s making its way across our oceans in gallons numbering in the millions…and doing so every single day.

So, really, we should be thankful that this is the first such event, at least in quite a while. Right?

Truth is, this kind of thing should never, ever happen. And I realize that that statement flies in the face of capitalism and the car I drive every day and the goods I purchase to eat and furnish my house with and the toys I play with and everything else. So what? I’d give up all those frivolities in a heartbeat if it meant that we’d never have another oil spill like this.

Maybe I’m just over-sensitive because this is my first oil spill. Maybe my sensibilities are too environmentally focused. Yeah…that’s it. I mean, this little guy looks pretty happy, doesn’t he? I think he’s smiling because it tickles when those nice rubber gloves pull on his feathers to get the oil off!

That picture makes me nauseous. And I reiterate that it makes me tangibly, violently angry. And that should be the case with anyone who hears about this, even if they don’t have to experience it first hand.

The tragedy demands an apology from everyone involved, including every single one of us that buy into commercialism so intensely that we make all this possible. And I’m not trying to be holier than thou, either. I’m just as much to blame, perhaps more so, because the only thing I’m doing is sitting in my insulated little bubble, blogging on my computer, and acting tough. But, I’ll tell you. Even writing about it is a lot more than most others are doing. It’s tons more than the pilot of the boat, or the company, or everyone else that’s closely involved is doing. Sure, the company is footing the massive bills for the cleanup efforts. Sure, the pilot is being investigated. Sure, there will be some stiff penalties levied.

OOOOOO!!!!!!!! I bet a worldwide shipping company like Cosco is really going to suffer from a few paltry little fines. It’s not like they’ve got billions of dollars at their disposal and insurance and stuff to make this into no more than a little ding on the hull of their barge of business.

At the very least, I would expect the pilot to come out and say “Man. I really screwed up. I’m horrifically sorry. And I know that apology doesn’t suffice, but I hope it at least lets everyone know that I understand the gravity of what happened and I’m going to do everything I can to make it right.”

Nope. We didn’t even get that. Instead, we’re getting silence. And when we’re not getting silence? We’re getting excuses that blame everything except the pilot’s own stupidity. “Well, it was REALLY foggy! The instruments were even confused! Totally NOT my fault!”

Oh, it was foggy? Really? IT’S SAN FRANCISCO!!! If it’s NOT foggy, THEN you worry. But, as a general rule, you should probably plan on dense fog 364 days a year. And as someone who’s only job is to know how to navigate massive ships through the bay, I assumed you’d know that.

But, that’s completely my fault. Sorry for assuming you’d know how to handle something like that. My bad.

Seriously. Can you imagine if other people applied the same logic that this guy is applying? Can you imagine if airplane pilots said this kind of thing? “Ohhhh. Yeah. It was really foggy when we were landing in San Francisco. Yeah, that’s why I forgot to land the plane on the runway and landed it in a neighborhood full of parents and children and covered them all in oil. And now they’re suffocating and slowly dying from the oil that’s covering their bodies and that they can’t get off. Yeah. Not my fault. I mean, it was FOGGY! What do you expect?”

Man alive.

The funny thing about all of this, too, is that this is like 9/11 for the wildlife population. Actually, it’s about 10 to 100 times worse than 9/11 was, comparatively speaking. But, we’re not going to split hairs here. And I’m sure if anyone reads those last few lines, they’ll get all up in arms over the 9/11 comparison.

Still, this really is like September 11th for the Bay Area’s ecology. Ornithologists everywhere can probably speak to that. Did you know that the first set of cleaned birds are set to be released back into nature today? Did you know that there are only 40 of them that are ready, out of a total of 900 that have been rescued? Did you know that the rest are either still recovering or are dead? Did you know that these 900 are probably not even 1/10th of the total number of birds affected? How about the seals and the fish and the crabs and the shrimp and the other aquatic animals that we CAN’T clean? How about the land animals that eat all of these other creatures and, so, will be adversely affected? Have you considered that even the cleaned birds will probably head right back to where they were before they were rescued, get recovered in oil, and either die or have to be rescued again? And this is even assuming they don’t die in trying to readjust to the wild?

I don’t know the specific numbers or processes or anything, and I probably should. But I do know, just from some very tangential research, that the cleaning process involves using DAWN dishwashing soap on the birds. And that after they’re rescued, they have to be force-fed a blended cocktail of Pedialyte and fish because they won’t eat after the trauma of being covered in oil. And that after they’re cleaned, they have to be put into incubators to get their body temperatures back up, or they’ll freeze to death. And that after this, they have to sit in holding pens for days or weeks so that they can further clean themselves and readjust to being social. And that after this, there is still a HUGE probability that they’ll die after being released back into their habitat?

So, yeah. The pilot and the huge international conglomerate and all of us have nothing to say sorry for. Those birds and seals and fish deserved this. They were asking for it.

My conclusion? We’re idiots. Plain and simple. I have no solution, other than that we need to start holding ourselves a lot more responsible for the collective dump we’ve been taking on this world that supports us.

So, one more story and then I’m done venting (at least for this installment, anyway).

I went for a run last night. I run from Russian Hill down along the water in Ghirardelli Square, across the peer, through Fort Mason, through the Marina, all the way along Crissy Field and the adjacent beach to the Golden Gate Bridge, and then back again. Usually, it’s one of the most beautiful runs you can possibly imagine. I get to look at the beautiful juxtaposition of nature and civilization (the Bay and San Francisco), I get to see the exact line where the two meet (the shore), and I get to notice every single detail of the contrast between the two. It is, bar none, one of the most resplendent places I’ve ever seen.

But, last night, it was not so beautiful. In fact, it was hideous. As I began my run by coming down off of Russian Hill, I was greeted by an interesting smell coming off the water. Now, I need to mention here, too, that I have one of the world’s worst sense of smells. Seriously, if you fart directly up my nostrils, I usually can’t tell. But, even I could smell the oil coming off the water last night. It hit me in the face like I had been closelined by an Exxon two-by-four.

I shrugged off the smell at first, assuming it would go away. But, it didn’t. It got stronger.

By the time I got to Crissy Field and was running no more than ten feet from the gently breaking waves, I almost couldn’t breathe from the stench. And as if one sensory overload wasn’t enough, I was gazing at the usually magnificent scenery and was appalled. The scenery was still beautiful, sure enough. Only, it was difficult to tell that because the beach was littered with clumps of oil that made the sand look like it had just been resurfaced with tar. There were about 20 or 30 volunteers in what looked like nuclear fallout suits, carefully combing the beach and shoveling the black sand into plastic bags that were stacked together in a pile about the size of three or four bales of hay pushed together.

God Bless these people for helping out. I think it’s marvelous they take time out of their busy days to do this and to try and make a difference.

But, in the end? Aren’t their efforts nothing more than just making the beaches pretty again so the tourists won’t get scared away? Where are those plastic bags full of oil going? Are they going to be loaded onto a barge just like the one that originally caused this mess, shipped out into the middle of the ocean, and dumped…just like most of the rest of our trash? Probably.

This, of course, is not the volunteers’ fault at all. Like I said, it’s awesome that they’re putting their efforts where their beliefs are and getting out there and helping. But, I’m afraid that their efforts are going to end up being for naught, anyway, because whoever is piloting the ship they’re on is probably just as negligent as the pilot of the Cosco Busan was.

Although, maybe it’s just the fog’s fault.

So, yeah. I guess there’s nothing to be done. These things are just bound to happen, whether we like it or not. Thankfully, it really doesn’t affect us much…well, outside of not being able to run by or sail on the water without being choked by the stench of crude oil, and eating fish and crabs for years to come that probably are poisoned, and admiring dead birds and blackened seashores around the bay. But, those are trivial things. It’s not like someone took our Hummers away!

And, we’ll adjust. We’ll just have to get used to not having lifeguards at the beach anymore. No more tanned bodies and bright orange bathing suits. Instead? We’ll have this:

I’m sure our kids will love it.

This entry was posted on November 16, 2007 at 9:24 PM and is filed under Opinion Writing . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.