Major Oil Spill Called Inevitable : Environment: Studies by two groups say that industry and government have failed to protect the California and Eastern shorelines.

One year after the disastrous Exxon Valdez oil spill, two national environmental groups warned Wednesday that the oil industry and government have failed to protect the California coastline and Eastern seaboard from a similar catastrophic accident.

In yearlong studies to be released today, the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Center for Marine Conservation said oil tanker traffic to Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York harbors is so heavy--amounting to at least 1,000 tanker visits a year--that a major oil spill is inevitable.

In producing the studies, the environmental groups culled official government reports and statistics focusing on three of the nation’s busiest harbors to develop detailed recommendations to reduce the risk of a major spill.

The studies, conducted independently but released jointly, are expected to increase pressure on Congress and the oil industry to carry out promised oil spill safeguards and come on the heels of state and federal action banning new offshore oil and gas drilling off California.

President Bush, however, is about to decide whether to reinstate oil and gas drilling off California in federal waters beyond the three-mile limit.

Citing U.S. Coast Guard statistics, the Natural Resources Defense Council said 91 million gallons of oil spilled into U.S. waters between 1980 and 1986, two-thirds of it from oil tankers and barges. Most of the spills were classified as minor. From 1980 to 1988, tankers in U.S. waters were involved in 468 groundings, 371 collisions, 97 rammings and 55 fires and explosions. The accidents resulted in 95 deaths.

Many of the tankers entering and leaving the harbors carry far more oil than the 11 million gallons spilled from the Exxon Valdez.

In recent years, there have been two major oil spills in or near Los Angeles Harbor, including the Feb. 7 Huntington Beach accident in which the tanker American Trader spilled 394,000 gallons after its own anchor gouged holes in the ship’s hull.

The report also cited the 1976 explosion in Los Angeles Harbor that burned and sank the S.S. Sansinena. About 22,000 barrels (924,000 gallons) of fuel oil spilled into the harbor as a result of the explosion, much of it settling on the bottom in patches up to 9 feet thick, the report said.

There are also about 500 minor spills each year in the harbor of less than 10,000 gallons, the report said. The report contained similar statistics for New York and San Francisco harbors.

“Based on this examination, the NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council) concluded that a massive spill, similar in size to the Exxon Valdez, could happen in each of the three harbors and cause major environmental damage,” the council said.

In fact, the U.S. Minerals Management Service, the government’s own agency that oversees offshore oil and gas development on the outer continental shelf, said last year that there is a 94% chance of a major oil spill off Southern California in the next 30 years.

Despite such risks, the two environmental groups said few preventive steps have been taken since the Exxon Valdez ran aground in Alaska’s Prince William Sound, spilling nearly 11 million gallons of crude into the pristine waters.

“Even though a year has passed, the steps that could have been taken to prevent such a reoccurence have not been. Congress has still not enacted a requirement for double hulls on tankers,” Natural Resources Defense Council senior staff attorney Sarah Chasis said in a telephone interview from New York.

“We haven’t seen a significant augmentation of cleanup equipment and an increase in response personnel. We still don’t have the situation where the federal government comes in and federalizes cleanup when there’s a major spill that threatens public resources. We don’t have a requirement that the owners of the cargo are liable for the cost of cleanup and natural resource damages in addition to the shipper.”

The National Academy of Sciences is examining whether oil tankers should be built with double hulls and bottoms at the request of the oil industry, which has long fought such requirements.

But a highly publicized proposal last year by 14 major oil companies to create five regional oil spill centers capable of quickly responding to a Valdez-type disaster anywhere in U.S. coastal waters has fallen behind schedule. The oil industry blames Congress for not quickly enacting a “Good Samaritan” law that would protect oil spill response teams from liability.

Among the major recommendations for the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles is suspending or phasing out offshore marine terminals such as the one involved in the Huntington Beach spill. The Natural Resources Defense Council also called for re-evaluating clearance standards for tankers using offshore terminals and requiring regular monitoring of bottom topography, water depth, tidal flow, and wind conditions, which may have been factors in the Huntington Beach spill.

Roger McManus, president of the Center for Marine Conservation, noted that Exxon has spent more than $2 billion to clean up the spill in Alaska’s Prince William Sound.

But, he said, “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”

One such safeguard, for instance, was proposed last June by the State Lands Commission, which has jurisdiction over oil and gas drilling in state coastal waters. The commission called for the equivalent of an air traffic control system to guide tankers and other ships plying the waters off California.

In addition, the Coast Guard plans to extend shipping lanes between Los Angeles and San Francisco to minimize collisions between ships and with offshore oil and gas platforms.

There already are traffic lanes between Los Angeles and Long Beach harbors and Point Conception, west of Santa Barbara, as well as the approaches to San Francisco Bay.