The State : Large Oil Spill Imperils Birds

In what U.S. Coast Guard officials termed a “major oil spill” in Martinez, crude oil spread across 10 miles of water northeast of San Francisco Bay, prompting emergency rescue efforts for hundreds of birds and other wildlife. About 21,000 gallons of oil spilled from drainage pipes at a Shell Oil refinery and ran into Carquinez Strait and adjoining wetlands, authorities reported. Emergency cleanup crews worked to collect the oil off the surface of the water, while rescue teams removed more than 100 birds and other wildlife, such as muskrats and turtles, that had been coated with the sticky oil. “They’re dying at the site,” Diana Granados of the Alexander Lindsay Museum in Walnut Creek said of birds not yet rescued, “because the oil is too thick. They’re dripping with tar.” State wildlife biologists and other officials expressed concern that the spill could spread to other wetlands.