House panel faults Coast Guard’s response to oil spill

SAN FRANCISCO -- Members of Congress demanded answers Monday on the Coast Guard’s response to an oil spill that dumped 58,000 gallons of fuel into San Francisco Bay, but the legislators left unsatisfied and pledged to open another federal investigation.

An admiral countered that the blame rested squarely with the operators of the container ship that rammed a tower of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge on Nov. 7. The crash opened a gash in the vessel’s hull, leaking fuel that contaminated miles of coastline and killed hundreds of birds.

“Something tragic must have taken place on board the ship,” Coast Guard Rear Adm. Craig Bone said. If the pilot and master “had carried out their responsibilities, we wouldn’t be sitting here today.”

In a three-hour congressional field hearing, 10 legislators took turns grilling Bone about why the service did not do more to warn the Cosco Busan that it was in trouble, why it waited hours to inform city officials about the spill and why it did not press fishermen and volunteers into service sooner.

Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.), the chairman of the subcommittee that convened the hearing, criticized the Coast Guard’s responses.

“Something is missing,” Cummings said. “We’ve got to find out what it is that is missing. It’s not just about San Francisco. This is about our country, and this is about making sure this type of thing doesn’t happen again.”

Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who represents San Francisco, said she planned to ask the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general, Richard L. Skinner, to conduct his own investigation.

Mayor Gavin Newsom told legislators that the first hint the city got of a major problem was when a part-time fireboat operator radioed that “something was going on” -- about 12 hours after the crash. The Coast Guard never informed the city, which could have mobilized forces, including volunteers, he said.

Bone acknowledged that the Coast Guard was too slow to inform city officials. He said the service was determined to improve. But the admiral conceded little else, pointing instead to human error aboard the Cosco Busan.

The pilot, Capt. John Cota, said there were indications of problems with his two radars and his grasp of electronic charts before the ship left its berth.

“If a pilot tells someone that his radar doesn’t work, then gets underway, then he basically puts himself in a position where he’s already placed the vessel at risk on his own accord,” Bone told the Associated Press by telephone.