Officials Board Tanker Linked to Oil Spills
The Coast Guard has traced last month’s messy oil spills along the Northern California coast to the 717-foot Liberian-flag tanker Command.
The ship was boarded Monday while en route to Panama, where a formal investigation is to be held, Coast Guard Capt. Harlan Henderson said Thursday.
“This was the first time the Coast Guard has pursued a spill into the international arena,” he said at a news conference.
Samples from a small spill Sept. 24 in San Francisco Bay and a larger spill off Half Moon Bay three days later were matched with oil still on the ship. The comparisons were made at the Coast Guard’s Marine Safety Laboratory in Groton, Conn., and the state of California’s Petroleum Chemistry Lab in Rancho Cordova. Both labs said the samples were identical.
The ship’s owner, Pearl Shipping Co., could face civil and criminal penalties, Henderson said.
The Half Moon Bay incident fouled about 15 miles of coastline near a national marine sanctuary and killed almost 100 seabirds.
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