Oil spill reaches Montara Beach

A week ago the Cosco Busan bashed into the San Francisco Bay Bridge and dumped 58,000 gallons of bunker fuel oil into the water. Since then, the foul black muck has drifted through the Bay and out to sea.

At first the oil headed north. But one morning we spotted the telltale gunk collected into a tar ball in the sand. Sure enough, just down the beach was a common murre, curled up and shivering. Altogether as many as 1,255 birds have died out of 2,278 found by rescue workers.

This is peak migration time. Crab season had been about to begin. The ocean was growing wild and full as winter approached.

This morning we found another another tar ball washed up onto the beach.

The balls look benign. But touch them, and the sticky goo lets you know they're toxic. One swallow can kill an animal.

At first the ship's pilot vastly underreported the damage as only 400 gallons split. Fragile areas of the Bay weren't protected, volunteers were shooed away, and the oil spread. As Peter Fimrite reported in the San Francisco Chronicle,

Among the myriad questions that have yet to be answered is why there was a nine-hour lag between initial reports of only 400 gallons of oil spilled and later reports that 58,000 gallons had poured into the bay. There are also questions about delays while large numbers of cleanup workers were brought in from out of state. Environmentalists have accused cleanup organizers of not placing booms around sensitive wetlands and wildlife habitats until it was too late.

In his excellent story, Fimrite exposes the tenuous state of the massive cleanup process. Shockingly, response to this disaster is in the hands of a private company. The effort

hinges on a little-known Louisiana company that works for big oil shipping lines and is largely self-regulated.

The oil will surely be with us for at least a decade to come.