Exxon Valdez Still Adrift on Troubled Seas

The Exxon Valdez is facing mounting barriers to its entry into San Diego Bay for repairs, including the likelihood of another oil spill and increasing involvement by state and federal agencies, officials indicated Wednesday.

The Coast Guard has ordered the Valdez to hold its position about 50 miles off the San Diego coast until the ship has stopped discharging an oily substance blamed for an 18-mile slick that was sighted Monday within a mile of the tanker.

Only after the discharge has stopped and a 24-hour waiting period has elapsed will the Coast Guard allow the Valdez to enter shallower waters, probably near San Clemente Island, to remove five steel plates jutting from the ship’s bottom. Those plates have to be removed before the ship can clear the bottom of San Diego Bay to reach dry dock.

Exxon officials remained confident Wednesday that the Valdez, the tanker responsible for dumping 11 million gallons of oil off Alaska, will be able to enter San Diego Bay. But Coast Guard officials speculated that the logistics of stopping the leaks and cutting off the plates could delay entry for several weeks.

At a news conference Wednesday, Exxon Shipping Co. President Frank Iarossi said, “I understand that people feel we failed on our pledge. But, I want to tell you, that pledge still stands. We will not come into the bay until we are certain” the Valdez has stopped discharging materials.

“Under no circumstances are we going to endanger the environment,” Iarossi said.

Coast Guard officials also said Wednesday that they expect at least one more spill from the Valdez after the plates, about 40 feet long and 65 feet wide, are removed and the ship moves out to sea for a final deballasting of the sea water in its tanks.

The uncertainty of when and whether the discharge can be stopped and the likelihood of another spill have increased the reluctance of state and federal officials to allow the ship to enter state waters near San Clemente Island for removal of the plates.

The Navy, which has jurisdiction over the island and uses it for target practice, has given preliminary approval to the repair at that site, Coast Guard officials said.

“I don’t think we have a problem with the plates (being dropped into the bay). Exxon could always pick them up later,” said John Grant, a biologist with the California Department of Fish and Game. “But (the department) has said that, if the ship keeps leaking oil, they won’t let it in state waters.”

State jurisdiction extends to waters 3 miles from shore.

High-ranking officials of the Coast Guard and state fish and game department, which have the main voice in allowing the Valdez near San Clemente Island and into the bay, said the ship will have to stay away from both places until they are satisfied that the tanker won’t leak any more oil.

The state Lands Commission has joined the Coast Guard and other agencies in investigating the Valdez matter, and California Gov. George Deukmejian, Lt. Gov. Leo McCarthy and Controller Gray Davis, among other politicians, have expressed concern over the tanker.

State fish-and-game director Pete Bontadelli arrived in San Diego Wednesday afternoon to observe the Valdez and was to brief reporters today.

Vessel Holding Position

“Certainly, we would not want to see the Valdez harbored in San Diego if it’s going to mean that it’s going to create some kind of water pollution,” Deukmejian said Wednesday.

By Wednesday afternoon, the small sheen trailing the crippled Valdez had all but dissipated, and the larger slick believed to have come from the ship had shrunk to a 1-mile-long, 500 yard-wide patch. However, two smaller sheens were sighted near the tanker’s bow, the Coast Guard reported, and discharged goop occasionally has bubbled out from beneath the Valdez.

Coast Guard Cmdr. Frank Scarborough said Exxon reported Tuesday that a similar bubbling from beneath the Valdez’s hull had been sighted twice, momentarily, during the transit to San Diego. That contradicted Exxon’s earlier reports that the problems were not discovered until Monday morning during the final inspection.

The ship, holding its position about 50 miles off San Diego, was being towed at about 1 knot westward from San Diego, and the government of Mexico has expressed concern about the tanker drifting toward its waters.

An 82-foot Coast Guard cutter has been stationed near the Valdez, and helicopters have been flying out during the day to observe the discharge, Coast Guard officials said.

The crippled Valdez arrived off the coast late Sunday from Alaska, and was expected to dock Tuesday morning at the National Steel & Shipbuilding Co. in San Diego Bay for a $25 million, nine-month repair job.

A final inspection by the Coast Guard and other agencies revealed what appeared to be oil coming out of the ship and the presence of the five steel plates jutting downward from the tanker’s hull. The plates, surrounding the damaged areas of the Valdez hull, apparently were peeled back when the tanker moved through turbulent seas on the 2,200-mile trip to San Diego.

On March 24, the giant tanker hit a reef in Alaska and spilled millions of gallons of oil, fouling hundreds of miles of pristine Alaskan shoreline, killing thousands of animals and upsetting the fishing industry.

Coast Guard officials said Wednesday that the slick and the sheen patches trailing the boat may have come from hard, dry oil residue in two of the ship’s damaged tanks not cleaned out before the ship left Alaska. The wax may have unexpectedly fallen off the tank walls as it entered the warmer waters off Southern California, said Cmdr. Scarborough.

‘Logical Explanation’

Scarborough said the Valdez has been lowered about 38 feet into the water to try to stop the discharge.

“No one foresaw the effect of coming down here in a warmer environment that would remove that substance from the sides of the tank,” he said. “This strikes us as the logical explanation and the one that makes sense scientifically. It would explain why the folks in Alaska thought they had a clean ship when it sailed and a dirty ship when it got here.”

Iarossi said that Exxon, the Coast Guard and other agencies that inspected and approved the ship for the transit to San Diego knew the wax residue was in the tanks. Cleaning machinery used on the ship apparently could not reach the farthest depths of the tanks, and divers were unable to physically loosen the material.

But he rejected the Coast Guard’s explanation of why the residue was coming loose. He said the wax could have been scrubbed off the tank walls by water that surged in the ship’s hull when the Valdez was raised to approach San Diego. The raising of the ship exposed the lower depths of the tank to turbulent waves, he said.

Iarossi, pressed Wednesday morning by reporters, at first maintained that he didn’t know whether the wax residue was oil, saying only that the substance, perhaps algae, had a “hydrocarbon content” that was nontoxic.

Later, however, he said he thought the material was aged oil that had lost its toxicity. “You know hydrocarbon is oil, but I wanted to avoid the impression that the ship is covered with oil, because that is not the case,” Iarossi said.

Environmental groups continued to question the presence of what appeared to be oil in a tanker that had been reported to be clean.

“This sounds like a theory of immaculate conception. It’s the oil that came from nowhere. Exxon should admit their fallibility, admit their mistakes, and stop covering up,” said Rick Nadeau, executive director of Greenpeace Action in San Diego. “We have to be skeptical of Exxon’s assurances, at this point.”

Other Greenpeace leaders called for more public input and a more stringent review before the tanker is allowed to dock.

“The best place for it is still in dry dock, but we have to be sure it doesn’t cause increased damage on its way in,” said Kelly Quirke, Greenpeace’s ocean ecology coordinator, who traveled to San Diego from the Bay Area. “That’s what a public review process could be used for.”