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39–876 PDF 2007

NOVEMBER 2007 SAN FRANCISCO OIL 

SPILL: CAUSES AND RESPONSE 

(110–89) 

FIELD HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON 

COAST GUARD AND MARITIME TRANSPORTATION 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON 

TRANSPORTATION AND 

INFRASTRUCTURE 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

NOVEMBER 19, 2007 (San Francisco, CA) 

Printed for the use of the 

Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure 

( 

COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE 

JAMES L. OBERSTAR, Minnesota, Chairman 

NICK J. RAHALL, II, West Virginia, Vice 

Chair 

PETER A. DEFAZIO, Oregon 

JERRY F. COSTELLO, Illinois 

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of 

Columbia 

JERROLD NADLER, New York 

CORRINE BROWN, Florida 

BOB FILNER, California 

EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas 

GENE TAYLOR, Mississippi 

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland 

ELLEN O. TAUSCHER, California 

LEONARD L. BOSWELL, Iowa 

TIM HOLDEN, Pennsylvania 

BRIAN BAIRD, Washington 

RICK LARSEN, Washington 

MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts 

JULIA CARSON, Indiana 

TIMOTHY H. BISHOP, New York 

MICHAEL H. MICHAUD, Maine 

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York 

RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri 

JOHN T. SALAZAR, Colorado 

GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California 

DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois 

DORIS O. MATSUI, California 

NICK LAMPSON, Texas 

ZACHARY T. SPACE, Ohio 

MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii 

BRUCE L. BRALEY, Iowa 

JASON ALTMIRE, Pennsylvania 

TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota 

HEATH SHULER, North Carolina 

MICHAEL A. ACURI, New York 

HARRY E. MITCHELL, Arizona 

CHRISTOPHER P. CARNEY, Pennsylvania 

JOHN J. HALL, New York 

STEVE KAGEN, Wisconsin 

STEVE COHEN, Tennessee 

JERRY MCNERNEY, California 

LAURA A. RICHARDSON, California 

JOHN L. MICA, Florida 

DON YOUNG, Alaska 

THOMAS E. PETRI, Wisconsin 

HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina 

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee 

WAYNE T. GILCHREST, Maryland 

VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan 

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio 

RICHARD H. BAKER, Louisiana 

FRANK A. LOBIONDO, New Jersey 

JERRY MORAN, Kansas 

GARY G. MILLER, California 

ROBIN HAYES, North Carolina 

HENRY E. BROWN, JR., South Carolina 

TIMOTHY V. JOHNSON, Illinois 

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania 

SAM GRAVES, Missouri 

BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania 

JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas 

SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West Virginia 

JIM GERLACH, Pennsylvania 

MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida 

CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania 

TED POE, Texas 

DAVID G. REICHERT, Washington 

CONNIE MACK, Florida 

JOHN R. ‘RANDY’ KUHL, JR., New York 

LYNN A WESTMORELAND, Georgia 

CHARLES W. BOUSTANY, JR., Louisiana 

JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio 

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan 

THELMA D. DRAKE, Virginia 

MARY FALLIN, Oklahoma 

VERN BUCHANAN, Florida 

(II) 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON COAST GUARD AND MARITIME TRANSPORTATION 

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland, Chairman 

GENE TAYLOR, Mississippi 

RICK LARSEN, Washington 

CORRINE BROWN, Florida 

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York 

BRIAN BAIRD, Washington 

TIMOTHY H. BISHOP, New York, Vice Chair 

LAURA A. RICHARDSON, California 

JAMES L. OBERSTAR, Minnesota 

(Ex Officio) 

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio 

DON YOUNG, Alaska 

HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina 

WAYNE T. GILCHREST, Maryland 

FRANK A. LOBIONDO, New Jersey 

TED POE, Texas 

JOHN L. MICA, Florida 

(Ex Officio) 

(III) 

(V) 

CONTENTS Page 

Summary of Subject Matter .................................................................................... vi 

TESTIMONY 

Bone, Rear Admiral Craig E., Commander, Eleventh Coast Guard District ...... 9 

Chrisman, Mike, Secretary, California Resources Agency ................................... 9 

Conner, William G., Ph.D., Chief, Hazmat Emergency Response Division, 

NOAA Office of Response and Restoration ........................................................ 9 

Grader, Zeke, Executive Director, Pacific Coast Federation of Fisherman’s 

Associations .......................................................................................................... 38 

Hand, Captain Thomas, Bar Pilot, San Francisco Bar Pilots Association .......... 38 

Hersman, Deborah, Member, National Transportation Safety Board ................ 9 

Lewis, David, Executive Director, Save the Bay ................................................... 38 

Newsom, Hon. Gavin, Mayor, City of San Francisco, California ......................... 5 

PREPARED STATEMENT SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS 

Farr, Hon. Sam, of California ................................................................................. 53 

Stark, Hon. Pete, of California ............................................................................... 55 

Woolsey, Hon. Lynn C., of California ..................................................................... 57 

PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED BY WITNESSES 

Bone, Rear Admiral Craig E. .................................................................................. 59 

Chrisman, Mike ....................................................................................................... 64 

Conner, William ....................................................................................................... 72 

Grader, Zeke ............................................................................................................. 91 

Hand, Captain Thomas ........................................................................................... 99 

Hersman, Deborah ................................................................................................... 101 

Lewis, David ............................................................................................................. 103 

Newsom, Hon. Gavin ............................................................................................... 111 

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(1) 

HEARING ON SAN FRANCISCO NOVEMBER 

2007 OIL SPILL CAUSES AND RESPONSE 

Monday, November 19, 2007 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON COAST GUARD AND MARITIME

TRANSPORTATION

San Francisco, CA. 

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:00 a.m., in Golden 

Gate Club, 135 Fisher Loop, The Presidio, San Francisco, California, Hon. Elijah E. Cummings [Chairman of the Subcommittee] 

presiding. 

Present: Representatives Cummings and Richardson. 

Also Present: Representatives Pelosi, Lantos, Lee, Lofgren, 

McNerney, Miller of California, Tauscher, and Woolsey. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. The Subcommittee is now in order. 

Speaker Pelosi. 

Speaker PELOSI. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

On behalf of the people of California, the Bay area, I thank you 

so much for being so responsive to the request of Congresswoman 

Ellen Tauscher, Member of your Committee, to have this hearing 

so soon, and especially in light of the holiday coming up. 

We are honored by our presence in our City. We are pleased to 

be joined by other Members of the Committee, Congresswoman 

Ellen Tauscher, Congressman Jerry McNerney, Congresswoman 

Laura Richardson, who will be joining us shortly, as well as many 

senior Members of our California delegation, from my right, Congresswoman Barbara Lee, Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey, Chairman George Miller, I mentioned Congresswoman Ellen Tauscher, 

mentioned Congressman Jerry McNerney, Chairman Tom Lantos 

and Chairwoman also, Zoe Lofgren. 

Mr. Chairman, as you have heard over and over, over the years 

from us, all of us has a personal relationship with this bay. Every 

person who lives in the Bay area feels a sense of ownership for it. 

It is a source of environmental safety. It’s a source of commerce, 

whether it’s fishing, or commerce passing through on ships through 

our bay, it is a source of recreation. It’s always, always renewing 

our community, whether it’s taking my grandchildren down there 

to play in the water, or all of us joining together to make sure that 

we have the dredging funds and that that dredging is done in an 

environmentally sound way. 

All of us have a stake, and have dedicated our work in Congress, 

in each of our offices, with a major emphasis on saving the bay. It 

is, as I said, a precious resource. Its biodiversity and fundamental 

2 

role in commerce and recreation make it essential to the vitality of 

the entire region. Protection of the bay, its safety, and its health, 

has always been a priority, as I mentioned, for our Members. 

I remember when Chairman Miller went up, at the time of the 

Exxon Valdez, and he came back down and told us what was happening there, and informed us of how we needed to protect our bay. 

This oil spill and the quality of the response to the environmental 

disaster is of grave concern, given the harmful consequences that 

may have been avoided. 

Following that Exxon Valdez spill, some of us introduced legislation in the 101st Congress to amend the Federal Water Pollution 

Control Act, to require the President to develop a Fish and Wildlife 

response plan that would better coordinate the efforts of various 

Government entities to protect fish and wildlife against oil spills. 

That legislation became part of the more major Oil Pollution Act. 

And so, today’s hearing will help us understand what could have 

been avoided and what more we can do, how to respond more effectively, and to, again, impress upon the Congress of the United 

States that this is not only important to us in our region, the San 

Francisco Bay is a national resource, a national treasure. 

I want to thank you, Mr. Chairman, once again for your leadership on the Committee of jurisdiction, for the generosity of your 

time and changing your family plans so that you could be with us 

today. I think it speaks eloquently to your appreciate for what this 

bay means to us. 

We are very proud in our community, Mr. Chairman, of our 

Mayor, who was recently reelected and will be our first witness 

today. 

I’ll yield back to you to recognize him. 

As Speaker of the House, I am a witness and observer of this 

hearing, because I don’t serve on any Committees. But, I wanted 

you to be sure to know how important your visit is to us, how important this bay is to our community and to our country, and thank 

you once again for joining us today. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much, Madam Speaker, and before I begin, and first of all, I also thank you for your sense of urgency. Urgency is so very important, particularly, in these critical 

types of situations. 

Before I begin, I ask unanimous consent that the following Members of Congress may sit with the Subcommittee on Coast Guard 

and Maritime Transportation and participate in this hearing, Congresswoman Pelosi, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, 

Congresswoman Ellen Tauscher, a Member of the Committee on 

Transportation and Infrastructure, Congressman Jerry McNerney, 

Member of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, 

Congressman George Miller, Congressman Tom Lantos, Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey, Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren, and Congresswoman Barbara Lee, and without objection it is so ordered. 

Of course, I also want to recognize the presence of Congresswoman Laura Richardson, who will be with us shortly, and is a 

Member, by the way, of this Subcommittee. 

I particularly thank Speaker Pelosi and Congresswoman 

Tauscher and the entire Bay Area delegation and their staffs for 

their assistance in organizing this hearing. I wanted to commend 

3 

the Speaker and the Bay Area delegation for their leadership on 

this issue. They moved to hold this hearing and to begin oversight 

on this issue immediately, after the spill occurred. 

The leadership is exemplified by the Speaker’s presence with us 

today, and it is my honor to have her with us. The Subcommittee 

convenes today in San Francisco, California, to consider the circumstances that led the COSCO BUSAN, a 992-foot ocean-going 

container ship flagged in Hong Kong to hit the San Francisco open 

Bay Bridge on November 7th, an event known as an allision. 

The allision created a gash of more than 200 feet long and 12 

feet wide in the side of the vessel, which in turn allowed approximately 58,000 gallons of intermediate fuel oil to rush into the San 

Francisco Bay. The consequences of this spill have been simply 

devastating, evident with every oil-covered bird and seal and in the 

desolation of every closed beach. 

It is the responsibility of the Congress to oversee the programs 

and operations of the Executive Branch. I’ve closely followed the reports of the events and the discoveries occurring in the wake of this 

catastrophe and, frankly, I’m deeply disturbed by and what I have 

been hearing. Too many questions remain unanswered. 

This year, the Subcommittee has been receiving testimony from 

the maritime industry and labor detailing the loss of expertise in 

the Coast Guard’s Marine Safety Program. Today, we are here to 

shine a spotlight onto the problems in all aspects of the Marine 

Safety Program, including prevention, response, and investigation, 

that this accident again brings to our attention. 

If we cannot yet see clearly into every corner, or onto every oilcovered beach or isolated inlet, we will at least be able to point investigators in the directions where they should look for the answers we expect. 

Let me lay out just some of the questions to which we need answers. Should the Coast Guard have prevented this ship from departing the port in heavy fog? Frankly, I’m interested in understanding how this ship could hit this bridge, as its position should 

be obvious even to those not trained in navigation. The Bay Bridge 

is not a small marker or buoy floating in the water. It is an enormous landmark. 

Did the pilot understand the charts he was using to navigate the 

bay, and were there communication difficulties among the bridge 

crew members? 

There are also questions about why the Vessel Traffic Service, 

manned by the Coast Guard personnel, asked the ship’s crew what 

its intentions were, rather than warning it of the impending 

allision. 

It appears, and I emphasize, that the final word on this matter 

will likely not be written until the National Transportation Safety 

Board completes its investigation, but it appears that this question 

was asked because the vessel was not completing a turn that is 

part of the normal course taken by ships heading to sea. 

However, it is also unclear whether the Vessel Traffic Service 

was even able to warn the ship of the impending allision, because 

the tracking systems in place in the service center are not advanced enough to provide the kind of detail that would be necessary for such a warning. 

4 

Our National Vessel Traffic Service Systems were created by 

Congress as a result of a collision that occurred right here, under 

the Golden Gate Bridge in 1971, between the Arizona Standard 

and the Oregon Standard. Now, 36 years later we are back in the 

San Francisco Bay trying to understand why that Vessel Traffic 

Service did not, or could not, alert the COSCO BUSAN that its 

course would lead to disaster. 

Regarding the response to the oil spill, the initial estimates of 

the amount of oil discharged from the COSCO BUSAN were ridiculously low, particularly, given that the entire spill occurred in 

what, apparently, was a very short span of time. And, some eye 

witnesses reported seeing a large sheen almost immediately after 

the allision, despite the fact that they, apparently, had many assets 

in the water around the COSCO BUSAN, very quickly after the 

spill Coast Guard personnel initially reported that only 140 gallons 

had been released. It was not until some eight hours later that the 

Coast Guard investigators reported to the Unified Command that 

nearly 58,000 gallons had, in fact, been spilled. 

Why were the initial reports of the total volume spilled so inaccurate? We are not talking about being off by a few gallons here. 

There’s a significant difference between 140 and 58,000. Did the 

Area Contingency Plan, agreed to by the Federal, state and local 

agencies, have adequate provisions to enable them to contain a significant spill in this area before it spread throughout the bay region? 

And finally, what problems have occurred in the investigation of 

the cause of this marine casualty? 

We now understand that the drug and alcohol testing of the crew 

members and pilot did not conform to the Coast Guard regulatory 

requirements. We also understand that the Coast Guard investigators were unaware of, and did not obtain, a copy of the voyage data 

recorder that contained valuable information regarding conversations on the bridge, radar displays, electronic chart displays, and 

the heading and speed of the vessel. 

It is imperative that the Coast Guard and all parties to the this 

incident provide whatever information and records they have to the 

National Transportation Safety Board so that there can be a complete investigation, both of the events leading up to this accident, 

as well as of the responders’ efforts. 

I also emphasize that our Subcommittee will continue to follow 

this investigation as it progresses, until we get clear and definitive 

answers to every question, no matter how uncomfortable the questions might be. 

Finally, before I close, I want to put the significance of today’s 

hearing into a broader context. Since the beginning of the 110th 

Congress, when I assumed Chairmanship of this Subcommittee, 

our Subcommittee has been comprehensively examining the operational capabilities of the Coast Guard. The United States Coast 

Guard is an organization that is undergoing profound changes, as 

many of the agencies of the Federal Government have undergone 

after the terrible events of 9/11. 

Prior to 9/11, the Coast Guard was a service that combined such 

responsibilities as conducting research, rescue operations and law 

enforcement operations, regulating the maritime industry, proVerDate Aug 31 2005 16:52 Jul 08, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00024 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\39876 JASON
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tecting our Nation’s marine resources and performing some military functions pertaining to security. 

After 9/11, while retaining all of these additional responsibilities, 

the Coast Guard has assumed significant new responsibilities for 

homeland security. The Coast Guard must ensure the security at 

ports and port facilities, it must assist in the roll out of the TWIT 

card that is intended to control access to secure port facilities, and 

it must conduct a variety of operations to ensure security around 

U.S. vessels and waterside facilities in Iraq. 

Our Subcommittee has been assessing how the Coast Guard, integrating these new responsibilities with the additional responsibilities, and in no way do we question how critical the new homeland 

security initiatives are, the security of our Nation is, obviously, the 

highest concern to me, to the Subcommittee, and to this Congress. 

I note that under the leadership of Speaker Pelosi, the first bill 

the current Congress considered this term was HR1, a bill that will 

increase the scanning of cargo containers carried to our Nation on 

ships from the current level of approximately 5 percent to 100 percent. However, the scene of oil scattered on the beaches throughout 

this region illustrates, in the starkest possible terms, how critical 

the traditional missions performed by the Coast Guard remain to 

our Nation, particularly, given our growing dependence on imported oil. 

I often say that the Coast Guard is our thin blue line at sea, and 

we absolutely must ensure it is not being stretched too thin as it 

continues to seek balance among its missions. It must be prepared 

to stand between our Nation’s 360 ports, 25,000 miles of domestic 

waterways, and 95,000 miles of coastline, and a spreading oil slick 

at the same time as it stands between us and the terrorists who 

threaten our Nation. 

It is my understanding that Members of the Committee will be 

submitting their opening statements for the record. Is there anyone 

that—everybody consents? Very well. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. We will now hear from Mayor Newsom, and 

thank you very much, sir, for being with us. 

TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE GAVIN NEWSOM, MAYOR, 

CITY OF SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA 

Mayor NEWSOM. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for 

being here and convening this Subcommittee, and I thank the 

Speaker for her leadership and her willingness to organize this so 

quickly after the oil spill and, of course, the congressional delegation from the Bay Area is about as good as it gets. So, we feel in 

very good hands. 

I will submit my written testimony as well, though I want to just 

very briefly, and I recognize the shortness of time, hit on five key 

points. One is the issue of notification, issue of incident command 

and response, volunteer management questions, issues that you 

brought up, Mr. Chairman, around navigational safety procedures, 

vessel control, and then the broader issues of clean-up and some 

closing comments. 

It is, indeed, true, as you say, Mr. Chairman, the notification was 

lax, and, in fact, arguably, there was no notification, even of the 

140 gallons of oil being spilled. It turns out the incident that ocVerDate Aug 31 2005 16:52 Jul 08, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00025 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\39876 JASON
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curred, roughly occurred at 8:30 in the morning, wasn’t til at 9:24 

that a part-time fire boat operator, name of Phil McCormick, called 

our Fire Boat Operations and talked to a Lt. Dudier, about this incident. The Coast Guard did not call us, Fish and Game did not 

call us, it was a part-time fire boat operator that called to say 

something is going on. 

We immediately began the process of coordinating potential dispatch of that fire boat, only to find out after we initiated calls to 

the Coast Guard that, indeed, there was an incident and they did 

not need our fire boat. 

We then began to receive phone calls from our port, and representatives of the City Government, that were complaining about 

employees with headaches and nausea, and this is at 9:30, 9:45, 

10:00, which was curious at best, in fact, precipitated a phone call 

with the port directors behind me saying, directly with me, thinking she, frankly, was over-reacting, to be candid, 140 gallons is significant, but I thought it was a bit of an over-reaction. Nonetheless, 

it precipitated in our desire to organize a conference call at 1:00 

after the evacuation of our port and Pier One property was complete. 

Again, we initiated that conference call. We were fortunate to 

have on that conference call the Coast Guard, that did participate, 

but, again, only with the information confirming this 140 gallon 

spill. 

Hours went beyond the 1:00 conference call, and we were unaware that at 4:49 the state was notified that the spill was, indeed, 

much larger. Mr. Chairman, your comment about eight hours 

versus 12 hours, indeed, the State was notified of a 58,000 gallon 

spill, 53,500 to 58,000 gallon spill, at 4:49, the City was not. At 

4:49, no one from the State contacted us, 6:00, 7:00 nothing had 

changed, still 140 gallons, 7:00, 8:00, 8:30, 9:00, all of a sudden on 

the radio, I’m in my car and I’m hearing about the fact it’s 58,000 

gallons. This is before the conference call was initiated at 9:00 from 

the State OES with all the various agencies. So, I’m finding out 

pursuant to a press release that the spill was not 140 gallons, but 

58,000 gallons. Again, the State OES, apparently, had that information as well, and for whatever reason they did not notify us. 

Now, here’s why I think they didn’t. You have very different procedures under the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, that are absolutely foreign to the procedures that are well organized out here to deal with 

all hazards response, as it relates to earthquakes, et cetera. In fact, 

we just worked for two years with your support Homeland Security 

money to fund the first major regional emergency operation plan 

in the history of our State. We have very strong protocols, the State 

OES being the lead agency. 

In this case, pursuant to that Area Contingency Plan, Mr. 

Cummings, you reference, that protocol is different. The protocol in 

this place puts the State Fish and Game, respectfully, the Coast 

Guard, and ‘‘the responsible party,’’ in control of that organized effort, not the State OES and not the local agencies that exercise on 

just this type of protocol day in and day out. 

A consequence of that, we enjoyed a disorganized effort. We were 

in a liaison position, and let me say candidly, were not particularly 

embraced as liaison to this incident, nor were the other agencies 

7 

around the Bay, local agencies, and we experienced an enormous 

amount of frustration in that first 24 hours, say, actually, first 48 

hours. These protocols must be addressed. They are 20 years old. 

You’ve got protocols in place for every kind of all hazard, but with 

oil all of a sudden all bets are off. Imagine if this was WMD, combined with oil, you’ve got chaos. We are just blessed, and oil is, you 

know, shouldn’t be change the protocol just because oil is being 

used as a weapon here, and I think that absolutely must be addressed immediately. It’s not a year, two, three years from now, 

that Area Contingency Plan needs to change immediately. You can 

work on the Oil Pollution Act later, but we’ve got to fix this Area 

Contingency Plan. 

A third area is volunteer management. This is a City that prides 

itself on volunteer initiative. They were completely left out in the 

cold. We, again, have protocols in place for earthquakes. We have 

protocols in place for all these other emergencies with regard to 

volunteering. In this case, we do not, and I know that Rear Admiral Bone will talk a little bit more about that, they have acknowledged both the notification questions and the issue of volunteer 

management. We now, though, proudly have 1,450 certified volunteers that have gone through protocol and process, which has been 

established. We are working with the Coast Guard, but these 

things, again, as part of the Area Contingency Plan, need to be 

adopted and improved. 

The issue of navigational safety procedures and vessel controls, 

you know, it’s remarkable, Congressman Miller, I was listening to 

you on the radio this morning talking about these larger vessels. 

These vessels are larger because they are doing these wing fuel 

tanks, and they are not double hulled, and we’ve got to get these 

things, I don’t care if it’s bunker fuel or oil, no mammal on the Bay, 

no one who runs on the beach, could care less if it’s oil or bunker 

fuel. These double hulls need to be addressed, and these ships that 

are faster and, obviously, are more prevalent in our Bay, are, potentially, more problematic because of these new strategies with 

these wing tanks. 

We recognize as well that the traffic control systems, the more 

accurate damage assessment protocols need to be advanced as well. 

We appreciate the investigation on weather, and language, and all 

the rest, these clearly are important. 

Clean-up, again, in the interest of time, very briefly, we just hope 

you are around a year, two, three, five years from now. It’s what 

lies beneath the surface that I’m most concerned about. Yes, we are 

concerned about high tide coming in, but it’s the plant life underneath. This is a migratory—one of the critical migratory areas, the 

Pacific Flyway, this is arguably the most extraordinary and complex urban estuary anywhere in the United States, again, 7 plus 

million people in this region, it’s an extraordinary natural resource, 

and we need to make sure that our shell fish, our mammals, all 

our underwater plants, marshes, wetlands, estuaries and the like, 

are absolutely cleaned up. 

And finally, I do think it’s appropriate to talk about the issue of 

issue energy and dependence. It is only going to get worse before 

it gets better. We’ll be back ten years with another potential problem if we don’t aggressively address this, this Congress is doing it, 

8 

you haven’t gotten the credit you deserve, keep doing it. We are 

ready to work with you. We are proud of our environmental stewardship, including a big tidal program right at the mouth of the 

Bay., We want to do more. 

The more we do, the more others can do, and the less likely we 

have to see an incident similar to this in the future. 

Again, that’s in very broad strokes, very short strokes, what 

we’ve experienced, again, not dissimilar to what’s been reported, 

frustration, finger pointing, sure, but we also believe moving from 

who is to blame to what to do, and I want to just underscore one 

point as it relates to moving away from who is to blame to what 

to do, when Rear Admiral Bone came in to San Francisco we were 

able to move away from who is to blame, and we began to focus 

on what to do. And, if there’s anyone who deserves an enormous 

amount of credit, sure, tough questions, and he’s get them, he’s gotten them from us, it’s Rear Admiral Bone, who has done an outstanding job, but again, we need to do a better job of advancing 

protocols, we need to make sure the State of California is front and 

center on this, we haven’t heard enough focus on that, and better 

coordination with that area plan, and I think a review of that Oil 

Pollution Act 1990, because I believe that it is outdated and no 

longer relevant to the new realities post 9/11 and post Katrina. 

Thank you. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Mayor, thank you, thank you very much, and I 

understand there will be no questions. But, you have assured us 

that you were going to stick around, just in case the panel members may have some questions for you off the floor. 

Mayor NEWSOM. Absolutely. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much. 

Mayor NEWSOM. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. We’ll now hear from our first panel. We welcome 

Rear Admiral Craig Bone, the Commander of the Coast Guard’s 

Eleventh District, Ms. Deborah Hersman, Member, National Transportation Safety Board, Mr. William G. Conner, Dr. William G. 

Conner, Chief of HAZMAT Emergency Response Division with the 

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and Mr. Mike 

Chrisman, Secretary of the California Resources Agency. 

Thank you all for being with us. We would ask that you adhere 

to a strict five-minute rule. We ask that you summarize your testimony. We do have your written statements, and they will be made 

a part of the record. 

Rear Admiral Bone, thank you. 

9 

TESTIMONY OF REAR ADMIRAL CRAIG E. BONE, COMMANDER, 

ELEVENTH COAST GUARD DISTRICT; DEBORAH HERSMAN, 

MEMBER, NATIONAL TRANSPORTATION SAFETY BOARD; 

WILLIAM G. CONNER, Ph.D., CHIEF, HAZMAT EMERGENCY 

RESPONSE DIVISION, NOAA OFFICE OF RESPONSE AND RESTORATION; MIKE CHRISMAN, SECRETARY, CALIFORNIA RESOURCES AGENCY 

Admiral BONE. Good morning, Madam Speaker, Chairman 

Cummings, and distinguished Members of Congress. 

On November 7, 2007, the Hong Kong flag motor vessel COSCO 

BUSAN was outbound departing the Port of Oakland in very heavy 

fog, under the guidance and direction of a California State Licensed 

Pilot, Captain John Joseph Cota, and the control of the COSCO 

BUSAN’s master, with 23 crew members. 

State Pilotage and participation in the Coast Guard San Francisco Vessel Traffic System, is mandatory for this transit. The 

Coast Guard has no record of communication from Captain Cota or 

the ship’s master prior to departure reporting any unsafe, inoperable propulsion, steering, communications or navigation systems. 

Early in the transit, the State Pilot, Captain Cota, communicated 

to Coast Guard VTS San Francisco his intent to pass through the 

delta echo span of the Bay Bridge, which is one of the easiest spans 

to pass through because it’s over 2,000 feet wide. 

The VTS operators are neither pilots nor masters. Thus, they do 

not control, give commands, give courses to steer, or give speeds to 

travel. They are trained to question a pilot when it appears the 

communicated intentions are not what, in fact, they had stated before, and to do so early enough so that a pilot or a master, if they 

need to, can take appropriate action. They are also trained not to 

distract the pilot with interruptions during any critical maneuver. 

Approximately, two and a half minutes prior to the COSCO 

BUSAN’s allision with the Bay Bridge, the VTS operator provided 

Captain Cota his observed course of the ship, and questioned if the 

pilot still intended to pass through the delta echo span of the 

bridge. 

The VTS operator did not give the pilot or the master rudder 

commands, courses to steer, nor did he tell them to turn the ship 

into the bridge. 

The allision of the motor vessel COSCO BUSAN, with the support structure of the bridge, actually hit the fendering system and 

knocked away about a 50-foot section of that fendering system, 

sending debris into the water, causing a gash, which we now know 

to be well over 200 feet long, the damaged area may be as high as 

270 feet long. And, as you said, Mr. Chairman, 12 foot by 3 foot 

section. That means 12 foot wide, 3 feet deep into the vessel’s hull. 

Also, it resulted in between 53,000 and 58,000 gallons of fuel, 

which is intermediate fuel oil No. 380, which is commonly known 

as bunker sea fuel. 

The forward ship’s allision with the Bay Bridge marks the first 

recording of an ocean-going ship striking this bridge that we have 

on record. 

10 

We’ll continue to work closely with the NTSB to determine what 

went so tragically wrong, as this ship is equipped with the most 

advanced systems, a ship with a licensed master, a State Licensed 

Pilot, charged by the State of California to safely navigate this vessel, and with a licensed foreign crew. Their failure to navigate and 

make safe transit through any of the four spans, any of the four 

spans of the Bay Bridge, resulted in extreme damage to this pristine environment and wildlife. 

It resulted in unnecessary risk and health to the Bay Area citizens, leaving no options but to mount a unified response made up 

of Federal, state and local emergency responders, as well as oil pollution professionals. It compelled an unprecedented on the water 

response in now very hazardous conditions, due to floating debris, 

the potential of containers coming off of this vessel with hazardous 

material in them, that aren’t going to float, by the way, up high, 

but maybe below, oil in the water, coupled with heavy fog, visibility 

only as far as 300 feet, and we had no air support until late that 

afternoon. 

The selfless action, I’d offer, and dedication, and preparedness 

and training of those individuals resulted in one of the most successful clean-ups that I’ve ever seen in my 30 years, actual cleanup operations, and you’ll have a chance to see why, and there’s 

more than 1,400 responders that are actually responding right now. 

Madam Speaker, Mr. Chairman, no one enjoys going under the 

microscope, but I know there’s many lessons to learn, many lessons 

that we’ve learned from this, many to be learned, and there’s improvements that need to be made. I also have to tell you that we 

have to congratulate the volunteers, it’s unprecedented to see the 

number of volunteers, especially—this is the first time in my career 

I ever had people that wanted to pick up hazardous material off 

the water, I mean, off the beach. HAZMAT cancerous material, 

these people in this community have an unbelievable spirit of volunteerism, and, actually, inspired our crews. They were out on 

scene. 

And, the men and women of the Coast Guard, we live in this 

community, the same as you, and we love this environment, and 

it kills us also when something like this happens. And so, I just 

tell you, we’ll do whatever we can to keep from having it again, investigating why it happened, joining NTSB to prevent it, and we’ll 

respond the same way as we did this time with regard to the actual 

on-site response. 

Madam Speaker, Chairman Cummings, and distinguished Members of Congress, I greatly respect the responsibilities of this full 

and Subcommittee and I’m prepared to answer any questions you 

may have. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Ms. Hersman. 

Ms. HERSMAN. Good morning, Chairman Cummings, Speaker 

Pelosi, and Members of Congress. Thank you for allowing me the 

opportunity to testify on behalf of the National Transportation 

Safety Board, regarding the containership accident here in San 

Francisco Bay. 

The Safety Board, as you know, is an independent agency 

charged with investigating all civil aviation accidents, as well as 

accidents in other modes of transportation, including marine. 

11 

Our responsibility is to determine probable cause and issue safety recommendations to prevent such an accident from reoccurring. 

The Safety Board seldom rules out any potential causes of an accident during the initial stages of an investigation. Although we 

have gathered a tremendous amount of information in the last 

week, there is still considerable work remaining for our investigators, including conducting additional witness interviews, analysis of 

the voyage data recorder, and verification of the documentation we 

have received from the Coast Guard and other parties. 

After the allision, we monitored the events in San Francisco. On 

the morning of November 10th, it became clear that the incident 

was a catastrophe, and we launched a six-person team from our 

Washington office. I accompanied the team as the Board’s spokesperson. Our team was in San Francisco that day, and we began our 

formal investigation on that Sunday. 

Since then, the Board has sent three additional investigators to 

augment our team. Our investigative groups address specific areas, 

such as engineering, deck operations, human performance and 

emergency response. Other teams, such as the Voyage Data Recorder Team, will be formed as needed. 

Our investigation is focusing on the safety aspects of this accident and the initial response. The issues we have identified so far 

and are investigating include, probable cause of the ship’s allision 

with the bridge, damages sustained by the ship and the bridge, notification of the accident, and action taken immediately after the 

accident to limit and contain the spill. 

This accident poses some challenges for our investigators. VDRs, 

or voyage data recorders, are relatively new. In fact, the COSCO 

BUSAN was not required to have a voyage data recorder. The technology is new, however, and there are a number of proprietary systems. Although we have been able to audition the voyage data recorder audio recordings, and see periodic radar screen shots, we 

have not been able to analyze the vessel’s performance, such as engine speed, rudder movements, heading and speed, because we lack 

the necessary software. 

We just obtained that playback software from the German manufacturer last Friday. We’ll be convening our group to download all 

of that information next week. 

Since the crew is entirely Chinese, all recorded conversations 

among the crew members are in Chinese. We will have a Chinese 

interpreter with our VDR group to make sure that all of the information is accurately transcribed. 

The communications between the pilot and the ship’s personnel 

was in English. We are reluctant to characterize what was said 

until we know the substance of all of the bridge communications. 

Fortunately, accidents like this are rare. The Safety Board has 

not investigated the pollution aspects of a major marine accident 

since 1990. There are some new issues for us, and we will address 

those issues with the same objectivity and independence as we do 

all of our investigations. 

We are fortunate in that we have other experts from other modes 

of transportation within the NTSB to assist us with the investigation; experts from HAZMAT and from Recorders. 

12 

The Board is presently in the initial phases of this investigation 

and there is still much work to be done. The investigation and final 

report could take as long as a year to complete. As new and significant developments occur, we will be sure to keep the Committee, 

Members of Congress and the community of San Francisco informed. 

The Safety Board investigators are still on scene. We will be having our wrap up meeting this evening with respect to our on scene 

investigation and will be taking all of the information that we have 

obtained here back to headquarters to perform our analysis. 

I do expect that our investigators will need to return to San 

Francisco to conduct some follow up work. Many agencies and 

groups have assisted the NTSB with this accident and responded 

to the accident that occurred. We would like to express our gratitude to the community and all of the groups who have assisted us. 

This concludes my testimony, and I stand ready to answer any 

questions. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much, Ms. Hersman. 

Dr. Conner. 

Mr. CONNER. Good morning, Madam Speaker, Chairman 

Cummings, distinguished Members. I’m glad to be here from my 

hometown of Mount Airy, Maryland to talk to you today about 

what NOAA has been doing in response to the COSCO BUSAN 

I have got a little frog in my throat. Thank you. 

My name is William Conner, I’m the Chief of the Emergency Response Division, Office of Response and Restoration, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Joining me today are Lisa 

Simmons from the National Marine Sanctuary Program and Jordon 

Stout, my scientific support coordinator for the San Francisco area. 

And, both of these individuals have been involved in the response 

to the spill here. 

NOAA is a science agency. We bring science to response, to improve the response decisions that are made in an emergency situation like this, and we focus on hazardous materials and oil. 

I want to talk about three things that NOAA does during a response like this, our three jobs. The most important ones are, to 

provide scientific support to the Coast Guard, to provide information that helps us protect national marine sanctuary resources that 

have been set aside because they are very special, and also to restore natural resources that are harmed by hazardous spills. 

The Scientific Support Coordinator for NOAA is a key player in 

this whole package, and they are supported from Seattle by what 

we call the NOAA Home Team, a special group of scientists that 

do pollution modeling, injury assessment, and that sort of thing. 

Our Scientific Support Coordinator was contacted on November 7 

by the Coast Guard, and immediately swung into action to order 

a trajectory analysis, and a weather prediction to aid the response. 

So, shortly after noon on that first day, our first trajectory prediction was provided to the Incident Command Post that had been 

set up. This was based on our Physical Oceanographic Real Time 

System for observing ocean tides and water levels, and provided a 

picture of where the oil might go over the first few tidal cycles. 

In your handouts, I have this handout on page four you’ll see 

what a trajectory analysis looks like. Keep in mind that all this 

13 

blue and black here does not mean that the whole bay was covered 

with oil, but if you key in to the bottom there’s a key that kind of 

gives you a hint as to what the water would look like from the air, 

where you’d have streaks and streamers of oil pictured down below. 

In addition, we have a trajectory prediction that focuses on the 

very first hours of the spill, also provided in your handout, and we 

focused in, ground truth this with overflights, and it reveals that 

two hours into the spill the oil was already covering about four 

square miles of the Bay. We’ll talk about that more later if you 

have interest. 

We also produced overflights and pictures. On the far side there 

are the pictures from the initial overflight that was conducted at 

noon of day two, of the spill. 

During the first week, NOAA delivered 14 overflight maps, 12 

trajectory forecasts, 14 tidal forecasts, 17 weather updates, and five 

special assessments or establishment of protocols for the clean-up. 

We were very active. 

Secondly, I’d like to talk about the Sanctuaries Program. Their 

role in the spill, as I said, is to provide information to protect critical resources. We have three sanctuaries in this area, Monterey 

Bay, Gulf of the Farallones, Cordell Bank, all three provide critical 

habitat to very special and endangered coastal species. They have 

a connection with the volunteer group called Beach Watch that was 

mobilized on the second day of the spill, and they’ve been very effective providing three to four people every day to the Incident 

Command since that time, as well as a couple of dozen volunteers 

every day. 

Thirdly, I wanted to talk about restoration of natural resources. 

Under the Oil Pollution Act, the responsible parties responsible for 

restoring natural resources harmed by the spill. In order to do this, 

you have to do a restoration planning exercise, present a restoration plan to the public, and then the responsible party is responsible for paying to implement that plan. 

I’m glad to tell you that the restoration planning has been initiated already. Several agencies from the Federal and State Government are involved, including the State of California, the National 

Park Service, the Fish and Wildlife Service and NOAA, and we’ve 

been working very successfully with the Responsible Party to get 

this expedited. 

So, to wrap up, again, the theme here for NOAA is science, 

smarter decisions for response. We bring a package that starts with 

basic observations about the ocean, currents, tides, weather, placebased expertise in natural resources, combined with hazardous material expertise, to model, predict and observe while the incident is 

occurring. 

Thank you very much for this chance to be with you. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much. 

Mr. Chrisman? 

Mr. CHRISMAN. Thank you. Madam Speaker, Mr. Chairman, 

Members of the Committee, thank you for this opportunity to be 

here today, and to testify as a representative of the State Governor’s Office. 

14 

As you all know, we have taken this incident very seriously, and 

I look forward to sharing some of our thoughts about this, about 

this tragedy. 

Back in 1990, the Office of Spill Prevention and Response, we 

call OSPR here in California, was created by State statute, within 

the Department of Fish and Game, which is part of the California 

Resources Agency, and as Agency Secretary I sit also as a member 

of the Governor’s Cabinet. 

Joining me this morning behind me is John McCamman, the Acting Director of the Department of Fish and Game, and Greg 

Herner, Senior Advisor to the Director in the Department. 

OSPR operates both as a prevention and response organization, 

and is one of the few State agencies that, in the Nation, has both 

major pollution response authority and public trust authority for 

wildlife and habitat. In this role, OSPR has a number of responsibilities, and they are developing with others a detailed Area Contingency Plan to prepare for and respond to oil spills, conducting 

natural resource damage assessment of these pollution events, implementing the requirement that vessels provide certification of financial responsibility or insurance prior to entering State waters, 

responding, investigating and enforcing pollution violations and operating a spill dispatch function 24 hours a day, and finally, focusing on spill prevention, guiding responses, and operating the field 

across the State. 

Together, all of these add up to our Nation’s most effective spill 

preparation and response agency. 

Part of these efforts, of course, are the plans, the contingency 

plans that you’ve heard referred to in previous testimony and comments. OSPR prepares and rates three types of contingency plans 

here in California for all spill incidents, and consider this requirement an essential function of its overall mission. 

Quickly, I won’t go into them individually, but there are three of 

them. One is a Vessel Contingency Plan, developed by the shippers 

and reviewed by OSPR. Other is the Area Contingency Plan. 

You’ve heard that referred to in previous testimony prepared by 

OSPR, together with the Coast Guard. I have with me here on the 

table our Area Contingency Plan for this area. They, generally, contain important site information and response strategies for events 

like this. And, of course, the other contingency plan is the Oil Spill 

Response Organization Contingency Plans, that are developed and 

are part of every incident such as this. 

Collectively, each of these plans work together to ensure that appropriate measures can be carried out during a spill and reduce the 

impact to the environment and public health. 

You’ve heard a description of the incident itself. I won’t go into 

that, the numbers of folks. Just know that OSPR was on the scene 

at the Coast Guard Station at Yerba Buena Island when the notification was made and immediately began to investigate the evidence of the spill. 

What has the Governor been doing? What have we in California 

been doing since the spill? Since the oil spill, the Governor has inspected the spill area on two separate occasions, has taken three 

very significant actions as a result of his authority. 

15 

First, he declared a state of emergency in the City and County 

of San Francisco and six other counties directly affected by the 

spill. Secondly, he issued an Executive Order which closed recreational and commercial fisheries in the area impacted by the oil 

spill. And thirdly, he called for a comprehensive State investigation 

in the oil spill incident. 

The Governor’s Executive Orders direct the Department of Fish 

and Game, in consultation with OSPR, to identify the area impacted by the spill in this area. 

Essentially, and when he closed the fisheries, this decision was 

not taken lightly, but was taken in an abundance of caution, recognizing the potential, and only potential, for public health at this 

time. 

It is likely that this action will have consequences to the fisheries 

and the fish businesses here in San Francisco and the Bay, and we 

have, and will continue to work with those businesses to be sure 

these impacts are minimized to the extent possible. 

As to the comprehensive State investigation, the Government has 

asked the Department of Fish and Game, OSPR, and the Governor’s Office Emergency Service, to conduct a very aggressive coordinated investigation into the causes and responses of this oil 

spill. 

Although we must wait for the investigations to be completed, we 

do not believe it’s too late to start looking forward in what else that 

we can do to take every step to assure that public safety, health 

and the environment are, indeed, safeguarded, and we also support 

the investigations, we’ve been participating in the investigations 

being conducted by our Federal partners. 

It’s already been alluded to in some of the previous testimony 

here today, but before I close let me also join some of my colleagues 

here in expressing our thanks to the residents here in the Bay area 

and elsewhere, who have contacted us to volunteer. The response 

has been absolutely extraordinary. 

The Governor requested that the California volunteers help coordinate the volunteer response, and certainly we have not been 

able to utilize everyone who wants to volunteer. It’s critical that 

we, indeed, operate in a manner that we can protect the public 

health and safety of volunteers, and that means not placing them 

in a hazardous situation, especially, without appropriate training. 

This is only a summary, we’ve got a big job ahead of us, and we 

look forward to working with all of you, Members of Congress, and 

our Federal partners, to get to the bottom of this, and deal with 

it in a proactive sort of way. 

Mr. Chairman, Madam Speaker, thank you very much for this 

opportunity. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much. 

I want to thank all of you for being here this morning, and, Admiral, I want to start off with you. We’re going to each have five 

minutes, and we are going to adhere to those five minutes very 

strictly, by the way. 

Admiral Bone, at 9:25 a.m., a small boat from the station in San 

Francisco followed an oil slick reported to be three feet wide to Anchor 7, where the vessel was located. A slick three feet wide from 

the point of the allision of the COSCO BUSAN with the Bay Bridge 

16 

to Anchor 7 would indicate, even to the untrained eye, that a substantial amount of oil had likely been released from the ship, yet 

it was not until 4:49 p.m., that the Office of Oil Spill Prevention 

reported 58,000 gallons had been released. 

How do you explain for us, because I think this is so crucial, this 

long delay in understanding that there was a significant amount of 

oil in the water. 

Admiral BONE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

First off, we don’t respond to a reported amount. That’s a reported amount of oil in the water, that is not what you respond to. 

And, I’d offer that actually if you look at the handouts that we actually provided, you’ll see the response equipment against what the 

standards actually are, you’ll see that the response that actually 

went on scene far exceeded, ten-fold exceeded. So, we respond to 

what the potential is. 

This ship, potentially, carried 1.8 million gallons of fuel oil. The 

response was not based on 145 or the ten barrels that we received 

later on. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. How much did it carry? 

Admiral BONE. It carries 1.8 million gallons on the ship, sir. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Okay. 

Admiral BONE. So, what we had was what’s reported to us, in 

this case by someone on the vessel. We had another report of ten 

barrels reported. 

We sent a team on, while one team goes on immediately to ascertain the bridge first, then they go down to the vessel with an investigator on board, within an hour we are on scene and on board the 

ship, and we are trying to find out how much has been spilled in 

the water. 

Meanwhile, the response is already underway, NRC, MSRC, are 

already mobilizing to move their equipment and mobilize it to put 

it on the water. Our boats, our small boats are operating on the 

water assessing the debris in the water, for those vessels that will 

be coming down, whether or not there’s containers in the water, 

you lose containers overboard in heavy seas. We had no idea. We 

were in fog that’s 300 feet that you could only see as you are out 

in this environment with an oil run. Our folks knew, and, actually, 

knew there was going to be more, they didn’t know how much 

more, but everyone on scene, everybody, and I’m talking about all 

the emergency responders throughout this, got focused on the response, and they knew the more they saw, the more they had to 

deal with this. 

And, I actually believe that what took place was, you are in a 

very hazardous environment, you start to get focused on people 

safety and getting this oil. The idea that somebody would intentionally, who dedicates their lives to, basically, protecting the public, and responding and going in harm’s way, would try to keep information from somebody that they know is of value to them, sir, 

it just wasn’t there. It was a mistake in the communications, but 

the response was absolutely fabulous. I’m talking about the on-site 

response. There was miscommunication, we acknowledge that. 

There’s miscommunication, I think, that could be shared across the 

board by all of us involved in this response. 

17 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Well, let me tell you what concerns me, Admiral, 

and I heard what the Mayor said about you, and he was very complimentary. But, what concerns me is that, I don’t want this to 

happen again, and from all I’ve read, and all I’ve seen so far, it 

seems as if it could. 

Would you agree? 

Admiral BONE. Well, if somebody doesn’t communicate, I guess 

what I’m passing on to you, sir, is, this, I believe, is unique in the 

sense that because of visibility, and people got tunnel vision, for 

whatever reason, I’m talking about all responders, there’s people 

with lots of experience that went on this, Federal, State, local folks 

that actually saw what they saw. 

The idea of communication of that amount, people got focused, 

they thought when they got that team aboard they could find out 

very quickly, and normally you would, but the ship’s side shell got 

smashed in, and so those sounding tubes that you normally would 

get a very quick reading from were not available. So then, they had 

figured on board, people are waiting, expecting to hear back from 

the ship, from the investigator on board what the amount would 

be. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Well, let me ask you this. You admitted that the 

Coast Guard was slow to realize the amount of oil spill released 

into the San Francisco Bay, but a November 14th press release 

stated that 12,745 gallons of oil has been collected. Is that right? 

And, that an additional estimated 4,060 gallons of oil had evaporated. How is it that you can measure so precisely the amounts of 

oil collected and evaporated, but it took more than 12 hours for you 

to estimate that 58,000 gallons of oil had been released? It’s just, 

you know, it just doesn’t make sense to me. 

Admiral BONE. Mr. Chairman, again—— 

Mr. CUMMINGS. And then, you understand why I’m asking these 

questions. 

Admiral BONE. Sure. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. It goes to credibility, too, and people are relying 

on our thin blue line, and, fortunately, we deal together, work together on a daily basis, but I want to make sure that we are doing, 

all of our agencies are doing what they are supposed to do, particularly, the Coast Guard. 

Admiral BONE. Mr. Chairman, let me just tell you, when we saw 

two tanks corrupted, we knew it was at least 500,000 gallons, I’m 

just saying anybody with experience knows that’s at least 500,000 

gallons. But, you don’t want to go out and tell people that it’s 

500,000, that’s what you could see. 

Now below, you had to stick the other tanks, make sure you don’t 

have water in those other tanks. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Wait a minute, you didn’t tell me, you said you 

don’t want to tell people? 

Admiral BONE. No, I’m saying—— 

Mr. CUMMINGS. You heard what the Mayor said, he wants to 

know. He wants to know what’s going on. 

Admiral BONE. What I’m trying to do, people were trying to get 

an assessment of how much. They knew they were responding to 

it. They were trying to find out how much was there, so that they 

could accurately inform. 

18 

I’m not going to make an excuse for not telling the Mayor and 

the citizens that they didn’t get an amount to say this have could 

put people in harm’s way if they went down to the beaches. I’m not 

going to make that excuse to you, or any Member here. 

I do believe that should have been passed, but I’m only trying to 

explain to you what transpired in the minds of the people that collectively responded, the people that are serving this public every 

day, and will respond and go in harm’s way tomorrow if called 

upon. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. My last question to Ms. Hersman, before we 

move to Congressman Miller. 

Ms. Hersman, are you getting, the NTSB getting maximum cooperation from the Coast Guard, because your report is going to be 

very, very significant, to trying to prevent these kinds of things 

from happening again, and for helping us to figure out how this 

Congress can work to make sure that we use our power to do what 

we have to do. 

Ms. HERSMAN. Mr. Chairman, our investigators did have some 

initial trouble when we first arrived on scene, I think, with the 

hand off of the investigation. But, through conversations with Rear 

Admiral Bone, Admiral Allen and others, I think that that helped 

free up the flow of information. 

We now are, I think, getting very good cooperation from the 

Coast Guard, and we hope that continues through the course of our 

investigation. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much. 

Congressman George Miller. 

Mr. MILLER OF CALIFORNIA. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thank you so much for coming out and joining us and 

having this hearing. 

Admiral Bone, the Vessel Traffic System, is it state of the art? 

Admiral BONE. Yes, it is. 

Mr. MILLER OF CALIFORNIA. So that, the question of whether or 

not the right equipment was in place or not in place is not open 

to question? 

Admiral BONE. No, and let me explain why. 

Mr. MILLER OF CALIFORNIA. I don’t want a long explanation, if 

it’s state of the art I’ll take your word for it. 

Admiral BONE. It is. 

Mr. MILLER OF CALIFORNIA. Okay. But, you point out that they 

are not masters, they are not captains, and so they are simply 

there as an advisory role. 

Admiral BONE. Yes, sir. 

Mr. MILLER OF CALIFORNIA. Should that be changed? 

Admiral BONE. That’s one of the things that I think that this— 

that Congress and we should all take a look at, for, particularly, 

high-risk, high-threat environments. 

Mr. MILLER OF CALIFORNIA. Air traffic controllers are not pilots, 

but they tell pilots what to do in emergency situations, as I understand it. 

Admiral BONE. Yes, sir, and they also have flight plans that are 

listed out. 

Mr. MILLER OF CALIFORNIA. The question of the spill, Dr. Conner 

testified that within two hours it was probably covering about four 

19 

square miles. That’s the problem you have when you have the tides 

of San Francisco Bay and oil on those waters. 

Which party is given the authority to contact the Oil Response 

Team? 

Admiral BONE. The owners of the vessel have the responsibility, 

and the master normally executes that on behalf of the owners, to 

contact the Responsible Party, it’s right in their Vessel Response 

Plan. 

Mr. MILLER OF CALIFORNIA. What happened in this case? Did the 

master or the pilot? 

Admiral BONE. I think both, actually, made contact separately, 

but the reality for this is, some of the responders actually responded before the qualified individual even called them. 

Mr. MILLER OF CALIFORNIA. So, how did they do that? 

Admiral BONE. They heard about the incident. 

Mr. MILLER OF CALIFORNIA. How did they hear about the incident? 

Admiral BONE. On the radio is my guess, but the reality is some 

of these people were actually mobilized before they got contacted. 

Mr. MILLER OF CALIFORNIA. Which people? 

Admiral BONE. The National—NRC, National Response Corporation, was actually mobilized before—— 

Mr. MILLER OF CALIFORNIA. In your testimony you state that the 

pilot at 9:18 called and told them and said that the leak had been 

secured, that there were ten barrels and the leak had been secured. 

Admiral BONE. The second pilot had actually passed that information. 

Mr. MILLER OF CALIFORNIA. The second pilot. 

Admiral BONE. Not the first pilot. The second pilot came aboard, 

he received additional information that there was ten barrels and 

that it had been secured. 

Mr. MILLER OF CALIFORNIA. There is, I don’t want to say there’s 

testimony, but there’s information in the record to suggest that 

when the relief pilot came aboard that oil was still leaking from the 

ship in a rather considerable amount. 

Admiral BONE. I think you’d have to ask the pilots, but I’ve 

heard testimony—— 

Mr. MILLER OF CALIFORNIA. Have you received any evidence—— 

Admiral BONE. —I can only—— 

Mr. MILLER OF CALIFORNIA. —that that’s so? 

Admiral BONE. —we have heard that, although I haven’t spoken 

directly with him, I have heard that. I can—I know that by 9:25, 

when our boat got on scene, all you had was a trickle, basically, 

or a dribble, you know, coming down the side about an inch wide. 

Mr. MILLER OF CALIFORNIA. By the time the Coast Guard boat 

got on the scene. 

Admiral BONE. Right, and—— 

Mr. MILLER OF CALIFORNIA. But, the pilot boat was there prior 

to that. 

Admiral BONE. —and they said, and I think the pilots will be 

coming up, Pilots Association, and the people that actually saw the 

amount, but I don’t think we are talking about a very large flow 

at that time. 

20 

Mr. MILLER OF CALIFORNIA. The Oil Response Corporation, that’s 

located in the Inner Harbor of Richmond, is that correct? 

Admiral BONE. Actually, they are located at various locations 

around the whole Bay, so that they can respond within the time 

constraints throughout the whole Bay. 

Mr. MILLER OF CALIFORNIA. So, they responded, they responded 

with what equipment and what time frame? 

Admiral BONE. Again, what I’d offer is, in here we’ve got a presentation that actually shows within the first six hours, but I know 

that there was two skimmers on scene within an hour of their initial notification. There was four skimmers on scene within two 

hours, and there was eight skimmers on scene within six hours, 

and this represents the six hours. 

What I note is, this is what the plan calls for, 2,500. The reasonable—that’s for maximum—— 

Mr. MILLER OF CALIFORNIA. I got that. 

Admiral BONE. Yes, sir. 

Mr. MILLER OF CALIFORNIA. Is the plan adequate? 

Admiral BONE. I think that we need to take a look at the 

plan—— 

Mr. MILLER OF CALIFORNIA. Two hours, according to NOAA, and 

the trajectory model, and I remember when we put this trajectory 

model, we were so proud of it when it was brought to the Bay years 

ago, is this plan now adequate, two skimmers in four square miles? 

Admiral BONE. Sir, I will tell you that there’s a national standard that’s put in place, if we are going to revisit the national standard, and say we want more cleaned up than that within a certain 

amount of time, but within an hour, I’m just trying to be reasonable, our rescue, for search and rescue, we have to get underway 

within 30 minutes. 

Mr. MILLER OF CALIFORNIA. I understand, but in this particular 

situation, the Bay was, essentially, calm, was it not, I mean, it was 

foggy so there couldn’t have been a lot of wind. 

Admiral BONE. Well, the currents is what the issue is. 

Mr. MILLER OF CALIFORNIA. No, I understand that, I understand 

that, but so we weren’t cleaning this up in treacherous water, so 

to speak. 

Admiral BONE. Well, other than—— 

Mr. MILLER OF CALIFORNIA. The question is, again, when you 

look at the trajectory model, it redefines San Francisco Bay, because it immediately, you know, it went out to the Golden Gate 

and went up and down the coast. the question is whether or not 

the response that is in place is adequate or not. 

Admiral BONE. Again, I think we need to look at, we need to look 

at what the plan calls for, we need to look at what the expectations 

are, and decide on a Federal standard. I’m not going to make a 

judgment on that, sir. 

I can tell you that 27 percent, almost 27 percent of this oil was 

picked up, and on average we get between 5 and 20, and that, not 

in conditions in fog, not in an open estuary like this where it flows 

through, you don’t normally get 20 percent. 

So, if you are going to go to this high end, I’m just going to say 

on every spill that’s something for, I think—— 

Mr. MILLER OF CALIFORNIA. So, 20 percent is the high end. 

21 

Admiral BONE. —if you ask the science folks, they’ll tell you 

what it is. 

Mr. MILLER OF CALIFORNIA. No, I understand, I mean—— 

Admiral BONE. I’ve been on spills, Congressman, where 38,000 

gallons have been released from a vessel, and zero has been recovered. 

Mr. MILLER OF CALIFORNIA. Yes, well, we—— 

Admiral BONE. I’m just trying to give you—— 

Mr. MILLER OF CALIFORNIA. I understand. 

Admiral BONE. —some perspective. 

Mr. MILLER OF CALIFORNIA. I understand. The perspective is in 

the Bay and this accident at this moment. 

Admiral BONE. I know, no one—— 

Mr. MILLER OF CALIFORNIA. That’s the perspective. 

Admiral BONE. Yes, sir. 

Mr. MILLER OF CALIFORNIA. In the long run, we’ll all be dead, 

but in the short term it’s about the pollution of the Bay. 

Let me just, if I might, and I don’t know who at the table is responsible for this, but there’s been discussions of personnel in the 

clean-up of this oil spill, with the corporation and response teams, 

the suggestion that there’s been retaliation if they speak out on 

this, and I just hope that somebody will convey to the Response 

Corporation that they are interfering with the Federal investigation, and that’s a violation of Federal law, because that testimony, 

whatever it is, I don’t want to prejudge it, needs to be preserved 

and needs to be preserved in the right form. So, I hope that whether it’s you, or whether it’s the Justice Department, or the Safety 

Board, the people understand that, that this is a full-blown Federal 

investigation. 

Thank you. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much, Mr. Miller. 

Let me just emphasize what Congressman Miller just said, and 

we’ve said this in this Subcommittee before, Admiral, that we will 

not stand for any type of retaliation of anybody, for coming and cooperating with this Congress or Federal agencies. I want to be real, 

real clear on that. 

You’ve heard me say that many times. 

Admiral BONE. And, Mr. Chairman, I can tell you that the Coast 

Guard, to my knowledge, has not told anyone to not say anything. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Or anybody else. 

Admiral BONE. I mean, just because you directed it to me. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. All right, I just want to make that very clear. 

We’ll now move on to Ms. Tauscher, and again, I want to publicly 

thank you for all your help in making all of this happen. Thank 

you. 

Ms. Tauscher. 

Ms. TAUSCHER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and it all 

goes to the Speaker’s leadership to make sure that we could all be 

here today. 

Admiral Bone, I want to follow up on a question that Chairman 

Miller asked about the VTS system. I understand that other VTS 

centers in the country, specifically, Houston and New Orleans, 

have an upgraded system, a new software and new monitors that 

we don’t have here in the Bay area. Is that because of resources, 

22 

or because we are in a chain of getting new equipment that we 

haven’t got yet? What exactly is that? And, would it be characterized that we don’t have a state-of-the-art system right now? 

Admiral BONE. Thank you, Congresswoman. 

First, what was being done was, there was an older VTS, the 

VTS system that was in place, they created this new system that 

Lockheed Martin had put in place, that was an improved system, 

technical system. 

Northrup-Grumman produced the first VPS system. When they 

saw that—— 

Ms. TAUSCHER. Is that the 1995 software? 

Admiral BONE. —these are the earlier ones. When NorthrupGrumman found out that Lockheed Martin was going to get all the 

money for the new systems, they said, they contacted our C2 center 

and said, hey, we can provide that same capacity at a cheaper 

price. So, we are going to give you the same technology, you are 

just going to get a different view, but the same technology is being 

provided. You won’t have to retrain your people on this new system, because they are already trained on this system. 

And so, you have equivalent technology on both systems, and 

equivalent capacity and abilities on both systems. One just happens to be provided by one company, and another by another. 

That’s the case. 

Ms. TAUSCHER. All right. I’d like to go to this issue of the bunker 

fuel, because, apparently, this is pretty nasty stuff, and what’s 

clear to me is that we need a lot more information about ships coming into our Bay that are going to be burning this kind of fuel, and, 

especially, if they don’t have double hulls. 

As many people know, the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships requires double hulls on bunker 

tanks fuel, starting in August of 2010. Clearly, that doesn’t help us 

right now. 

My questions are, should we amend that requirement to say that 

older ships should be retrofitted? And, we are all aware of the financial requirements to do that, and how prohibitive that may be, 

but it seems to me that we need to know a lot more about the kind 

of fuel that these ships coming into our Bay are burning, that it’s 

one thing to be coming in with a lighter load, but when you are 

going out, and you are fully—well, your tanks are full, it seems to 

me that the requirements of us knowing that, number one, you are 

burning bunker fuel, number two, you don’t have a double hulled 

fuel tank, number three, we’ve got to know where you are, because 

you are insidious if you have a spill, as opposed to just being bad 

and damaging. 

Can you kind of illuminate us as to what you think the most safe 

way for us to get that information, and should we have it before 

these ships are in the harbor? 

Admiral BONE. First, I just want to make sure you are aware 

that it isn’t that they are all actually required to have double hulls 

under the new standard, there’s actually an alternative flow outflow that could be done by a ship owner. So, that’s not lock solid 

that everybody would have to go to double hulls. 

Ms. TAUSCHER. Okay. 

23 

Admiral BONE. I’m not a person that could say this is exactly 

what we should have with regard to double hulls. I actually think 

our emphasis and effort has to be placed on preventing the incident, not allowing things to hit things. Steel hitting concrete will 

lose every time, and that’s what took place here. And so, we can’t 

let — we can’t afford—rocks will win over steel every time, too, and 

you can’t control the sea state once a ship goes aground, it will 

work on it until it breaks it up. 

So, we have to find a way to prevent these accidents from happening. We have to establish whatever control mechanisms and 

management, and we have to make sure we have the very best people operating them. 

If we are going to bring in, we are bringing in ships now that 

can carry fuel as large as tankers back in the ’70s, when most of 

these plans were first thought up. So, times have changed, we do 

need to look at this. We have to make adjustments in our safety 

system, and I look forward to working with Congress to do that. 

Ms. TAUSCHER. Well, Admiral, let me clarify this. Are you saying 

that because a ship is burning bunker fuel it shouldn’t be treated 

differently? Isn’t bunker fuel the worst case scenario? 

Admiral BONE. No, actually, there’s other fuels that may have, 

or other cargos, and I’m not sure about bunker fuel, but there’s 

other types of cargos of fuels that may actually be worse. 

I mean, some people suggest gasoline or diesel, reality there is 

if you have a spill you have a huge flammable environment as well, 

and you have a very big safety standard if they hit something. 

Ms. TAUSCHER. Would you have acted differently if you had 

known that the COSCO BUSAN was burning bunker fuel? 

Admiral BONE. No. 

Ms. TAUSCHER. Is that information valuable to you when you are 

attempting to deal with this kind of accident?x 

Admiral BONE. Yes, it is, because if the specific gravity is greater 

than one it’s likely to sink, or be suspended at least. Fortunately, 

when we tested this it was .93 to .95, both from warmer temperatures to colder temperatures, so we had a higher — we had higher 

assurance that it was going to be on the surface more than sinking 

when we were doing the initial response, and that’s what really 

drove us to get out there early before it gets into the water column. 

Ms. TAUSCHER. For all of the ships that are in our Bay, and 

going over to Oakland, do you have information all the time as to 

what kind of fuel that they are carrying? 

Admiral BONE. I wouldn’t say the specific fuel, but I would expect it’s bunker, some type of bunker fuel that they operating on. 

It’s usually the degree of sulfur that most people are talking about, 

and that has more to do with air emissions than the real fuel-specific gravity. 

Ms. TAUSCHER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much. 

Let me just ask you this quick question. Was there a senior investigating officer assigned to this? 

Admiral BONE. Yes, there was. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. And, who was that? 

24 

Admiral BONE. It’s the senior investigating officer on — over all 

this is Captain Ross Wheatley, who has been assisting with the 

NTSB and been sitting in their investigation. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. I’m just curious about that, I’ll come back to 

that. 

Mr. Lantos, Congressman Lantos. 

Mr. LANTOS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Ms. Hersman, representing the National Transportation Safety 

Board, you very properly say that it will take you a year to draw 

some conclusions. But, to the naked eye it seems that what we are 

witnessing is a cascading cavalcade of preventable mistakes. 

There is zero surprise in this whole tragedy. There is a ship, 

there is a bridge, there is some fog. And, I find it incomprehensible 

that in the post 9/11 climate we should be sitting here as if this 

would be a new phenomenon. There is not one iota of surprise or 

new development in all that I have listened to and all that I have 

read about. Every single one of the items would have been projected, forecast and prevented. 

The thing which is so disturbing to those of us who live here, and 

who feel a responsibility for this area, that all the agencies are 

really side stepping their responsibility. There are events which are 

surprise events. Some of these events are acts of nature, like the 

nightmare which is unfolding in Bangladesh as we are sitting here 

today. Some of these are terrorist acts. This was a routine movement of a ship in a well-controlled area. And, here we are facing 

an unspeakable tragedy and disaster. 

I would like to ask you, Ms. Hersman, and then the Admiral if 

he’s willing, what is your explanation to the fact that a totally preventable, several mistakes, has given us this cavalcade of calamities. 

Ms. HERSMAN. Unfortunately, the Safety Board is in the business 

of investigating accidents. There are always a chain of events that 

could have been prevented, and that’s why the Congress created us, 

so that we can make recommendations so they don’t happen again. 

We are looking at the man, the machine and the environment, 

as we do in every situation, to make recommendations so that either equipment can be improved, training, or checklists, or response can be improved, or if there are any anomalies with the 

equipment or the vessel, that those would be addressed. 

You are right, it could be, it could be prevented. 

Mr. LANTOS. It should have been prevented. Let me just take one 

small corner of this, linguistic competence. Are you satisfied, is the 

National Transportation Safety Board satisfied, that all the relevant crew members are qualified to function in English when they 

enter San Francisco Bay? 

Ms. HERSMAN. That will be part of our investigation. We have— 

Mr. LANTOS. But, it’s not a new phenomenon. 

Ms. HERSMAN. —not been able, we have not yet been able to 

interview the crew members. 

Mr. LANTOS. But, do you think that the existing regulations and 

requirements are adequate with respect to linguistic competence? 

Ms. HERSMAN. There are requirements that exist, that there be 

a language, a common language, aboard the vessel for safety purposes. We will be looking to see if that existed in this situation. 

25 

Mr. LANTOS. Do you think that the existing linguistic requirement is adequate, because there are plenty of reports concerning 

this episode that there was confusion in communications. In your 

own testimony, you said all of the conversation was in Chinese, and 

this will have to be translated. 

Ms. HERSMAN. The Safety Board has looked at this issue in the 

past, and I know Members have raised the issue in aviation. Marine is no different, there are going to be interactions from crews 

from all around the world, whether they are airplane crews or marine crews. It’s not unusual to have people come in to a port or an 

airport that don’t speak that language. 

But, what is important is that people who are communicating 

about safety essential functions can communicate with each other 

and be understood. In the past, the Board has made recommendations with respect to communications and language issues, common 

phraseology in the aviation arena. If there are issues here, we will 

look at those as well. 

Admiral BONE. I really would never have expected this event to 

occur, because of the spans, and how wide they are, and the fact 

that this is one of the few ports that I’ve been to in the Bay area 

where you have deep water across the entire Bay. 

I can’t begin to tell you how or why this should have ever occurred. There’s absolutely no basis in my mind’s eye for this to 

have ever occurred. Something on board that ship had to go terribly wrong. I’m talking amongst people that have been deemed 

competent to carry out their mission, both by the State and by an 

international body. 

I cannot stress that enough, I don’t—— 

Mr. LANTOS. So, you agree with me that it was totally preventable. 

Admiral BONE. —it was totally preventable, totally. 

Mr. LANTOS. Yet, it happened. 

Admiral BONE. Yes. 

Mr. LANTOS. Is there any of the explanation in the regulations 

concerning fog? I mean, we have fog here all the time. 

Admiral BONE. Yes, there are regulations, in fact, in the Inland 

Rules regarding steering and speed, with regard to fog, and there’s 

caution that’s, basically, placed within it, to both masters and pilots, as they navigate vessels. 

Yes, visibility is included. 

Mr. LANTOS. And, the regulations are adequate as far as you are 

concerned? 

Admiral BONE. If they had been followed, and they had carried 

out their responsibilities promptly, we wouldn’t be where we are 

today, sitting right here. 

Mr. LANTOS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Admiral Bone, let me thank you very much. Admiral Bone, I must follow up on something that—an answer that 

you just gave Mr. Lantos. 

You said something, and I don’t want to take the words out of 

your mouth, but something awfully wrong went on on that boat. Is 

that what you said? 

Admiral BONE. Yes, well, I said something tragic must have 

taken place on board the ship, on board for people that have expeVerDate Aug 31 2005 16:52 Jul 08, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00045 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\39876 JASON
26 

rience, that are there, for this event to have occurred. That’s my 

opinion. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Well, you know, when I heard you say that, I 

couldn’t help but think about the question of how do you explain 

the failure of the Coast Guard personnel to ensure that the drug 

and alcohol tests were completed in the time period required by 

your regulations, and why wasn’t the ship’s captain, who was directly involved in this incident, tested within the required period, 

instead of days after the incident? 

You caused me to think about that, because I’m thinking about 

what can go wrong. 

Admiral BONE. Yes, sir. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. And, you just threw that one right at me. 

Admiral BONE. Well, Mr. Chairman, I just want to, I’m not trying to throw anything back, but I want to make sure it’s understood that the master, and the crew, and the pilot, were all tested 

for alcohol within the time constraints. 

The master and the pilot were also tested within the time constraints for drugs, and all proved negative, for both alcohol, 0.0, 

also for drugs. 

The remaining crew that’s in the navigation portion of the crew 

are the people, not the master, not the pilot, both of those were 

tested within the time constraints, the additional people in the 

crew, which by the way is not the responsibility of the Coast Guard 

to ensure its tested, it’s the responsibility of the employer, which 

in this case is the owner, to ensure they are tested by law. 

The Coast Guard is not the one who goes out and administers 

this test, Mr. Chairman. We discovered that they didn’t test the 

five additional crew. We caught it, we caught them, we made them 

get them tested. We received those results, and those, too, are negative. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Okay, who is the owner? 

Admiral BONE. Regal Stone. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. All right. I’m just going to briefly go to Mr. Miller for one question. Very well. 

Mr. MILLER OF CALIFORNIA. No, I’m just, in one of the documents 

it suggested at one point that this ship was moving parallel to the 

bridge. That would be something terribly wrong, if it’s going to—— 

Admiral BONE. Actually, Congressman, because of the way you 

come out from that particular area—— 

Mr. MILLER OF CALIFORNIA. Right. 

Admiral BONE. —you will run parallel, and sometimes you will 

dip south in order to set yourself up—— 

Mr. MILLER OF CALIFORNIA. Right, when you are coming out of 

the Inner Harbor. 

Admiral BONE. —for that bridge, so you maybe come out, and 

then normally you may set yourself south, and then make your approach, or you could come parallel and turn in. 

Again, this span is twice the length of that—— 

Mr. MILLER OF CALIFORNIA. No, I understand, so you are saying 

it was parallel at the time it came out of the Inner Harbor of Oakland, and was moving toward the opening. 

Admiral BONE. Well, I’m not going to put anymore words, NTSB 

has the investigation. What I wanted to make clear, though, ConVerDate Aug 31 2005 16:52 Jul 08, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00046 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\39876 JASON
27 

gressman, is this vessel was not in imminent danger when that 

VTS operator called in. This vessel was not running into the bridge 

abutment. That’s what everybody thinks from the information 

that’s been passed out, it’s false, and it’s almost an indictment on 

the individual, who actually tried, you know, who made a notification. 

And, let me explain why they called them and asked them that, 

if I could. The reason they are calling and asking their intentions 

is because they are going—they are telling them where they are 

going to pass. Well, there’s a lot of other vessels in the system, and 

one of the main reasons for that Vessel Traffic System is to let 

them know, hey, this vessel is going to be coming through this 

span, so if you are coming don’t go through that same span, choose 

the other span, or choose one of these others, so that they can anticipate, because these ships are large masses that will move, and 

stopping them, it isn’t like on a car where you can just stop them, 

it takes sometimes almost a mile to stop a ship, depending on, in 

this case it was 1.3 miles from where it hit, and it something to 

the anchorage area, Anchorage 7. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Ms. Lofgren. 

Ms. LOFGREN. The concern I have about this is very strong. You 

know, I was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay area, and 

to explain how we feel about the Bay, those of us who have lived 

here all our lives, I really can’t. 

I remember as a young staffer for my predecessor, Congressman 

Don Edwards, working for almost ten years to help establish what 

is now called the Don Edwards Wildlife Refuge, and then again in 

local government, serving on the Bay Conservation and Development Commission with our colleague, Anna Eshoo, who was not 

able to be here today, drilling the plans that we would have if there 

were ever an incident such as this over and over again, and now 

serving on the House Homeland Security Committee, the Border 

and Port Security Subcommittee. 

And, I’ll just say, my constituents are not impressed with what 

happened here, number one, they don’t understand how an accident like this could be allowed to happen. I mean, as Mr. Lantos 

has said, fog is routine, it’s not an out of the ordinary. So, it’s prevention, but it’s also response. And, we are not impressed by the 

response. 

I mean, I’ve heard that from my constituents from beginning to 

end, and so I don’t want to just complain, I want to see how can 

we do this better. How can we make sure if something like this 

happens again, we do a better job? 

And, I was struck, Dr. Conner, by your testimony on what you 

were told about how many gallons had been released on November 

7th, 420 gallons, and you did your mapping, and from all I can tell 

you performed appropriately under the plans as we had hoped, except that the amount that you were given was not correct. 

Would your response have been different had the actual magnitude been told to NOAA at 10:00 a.m.? 

Mr. CONNER. Thank you for asking that question, it’s a really interesting one, and, basically, the answer is no, it wouldn’t have 

changed. 

28 

The way the model works is that, basically, you throw a bunch 

of oil parcels into the Bay, and then move them around according 

to the currents and such, and the number of parcels doesn’t change 

with the volume of the water, I’m sorry, the volume of the oil in 

the model, it’s just that the amount of oil associated with each parcel changes. 

So, the answer is no, in regard to the modeling. There wouldn’t 

have been any significant difference. 

Secondly, with regard to our response, we, basically, are very experienced. We get about 100 to 120 calls a year on spills like this. 

And, it is very normal for the early reports of the estimated volume 

to jump around until they finally settle out one or two days later. 

So, basically, when we get a notification of a release into a critical and dynamic habitat like San Francisco Bay, we are full-bore 

responding, until we know for sure that it was a small release. 

Our SSC was at a Regional Response Team meeting at the time 

of the spill in Las Vegas, and he was notified by cell phone, and 

immediately did his notifications and came back to San Francisco 

and reported to the Incident Command by dinnertime that evening. 

And, we also stood up our Home Team in Seattle, and started 

our modeling, our weather forecasting, and our toxicity assessments, and so we were full-bore responding. 

Ms. LOFGREN. Let me ask you this. One of the other comments 

I’ve heard from people in the Bay area, and maybe it’s because the 

Committee I serve on is, you know, what if this had been some 

other kind of incident, not an oil spill, bad as that is, but a homeland security type of event. People didn’t feel that the response was 

that on point. 

Are you satisfied with the interagency response to this event, Dr. 

Conner? 

Mr. CONNER. I think the safe answer to that is, we’ll wait and 

see what the Coast Guard’s investigation shows. We are going to 

participate in that investigation by providing a Scientific Support 

Coordinator from another region, who was not involved in this response. And, Admiral Allen has promised to have some kind of an 

initial reading within 90 days. 

But, I have not seen anything, or seen anything reported, that 

would cause me to have concerns about the interagency coordination of the response. 

Ms. LOFGREN. Let me just ask a final question, as my time is almost through. 

A year ago, there was a large exercise, a major field exercise, according to your testimony, of the NOAA Safe Seas 2006, and part 

of that was to train volunteers to respond. 

One of the complaints I have received, and I’m sure my colleagues have, is that people who were trained, who wanted to 

come, and this is the Bay area, people volunteer, people care about 

their environment, they came to help, I understand if people 

weren’t trained that’s one thing, but people that were trained were 

not utilized. 

And, in your judgment, did that exercise yield the kind of effort 

that you wanted? I mean, the people we trained couldn’t be used. 

Mr. CONNER. Yes, I think the exercise was effective in raising the 

capability of volunteers to contribute to a response. It’s really difVerDate Aug 31 2005 16:52 Jul 08, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00048 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\39876 JASON
29 

ficult, the first day of the response, setting up the Unified Command, developing the first Incident Action Plan for the subsequent 

day. I’m going to go out on a limb here and assume that getting 

volunteers involved is something that the Command tried to do in 

day two and day three. So, the volunteers may have been frustrated that they couldn’t be—— 

Ms. LOFGREN. Well, they were, I’ll tell you that. 

Mr. CONNER. —involved. 

Yes, ma’am, they couldn’t become involved more quickly, but—— 

Ms. LOFGREN. I’d just like to ask you to think about this, if we’ve 

trained people, I know the City had trained people as well, 

shouldn’t we, in advance, do some identification system, have that 

as part of our play. So, if there are people who are trained and they 

want to be there hour two, we are able to utilize them if we know 

and can certify that we’ve already trained them, instead of this situation, which was just infuriating to people. 

Mr. CONNER. Well, one of the things that I mentioned in my testimony was that the Beach Watch volunteers that are associated 

with the Marine Sanctuaries Program, and were part of the Safe 

Seas exercise, were actually used starting the morning of the second day. And, I think the Admiral wants to say something about 

some of the other volunteers, if you would allow that. 

Admiral BONE. Actually, all I was going to do is, that’s what I 

was going to echo, that that training in Safe Seas 2006 was dominantly to help identify spotters and people that could identify wildlife, so that people could get there more quickly, and actually assist 

better with the clean-up, and move the skimmers who are response 

people, and that was, in fact, exercised. 

We didn’t, I don’t think anybody anticipated, again, that people 

were going to want, that civilians were going to come in droves to 

actually handle hazardous material and clean it off the beaches. It 

just hasn’t happened. 

But again, we thank the community for doing it. It required us 

to adjust on the fly and get some training and put that together. 

You are right, it should be in the plan, we are committed to putting it in the plan, and it’s something that the Mayor and I have 

already talked about. 

Ms. LOFGREN. Mr. Chairman, my time has expired, but I’ll just 

say, you could have asked any one of us and we would have told 

you that our constituents would want to help. 

Thank you. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Before we get to—thank you very much, Ms. 

Lofgren—before we get to Mr. McNerney, let me ask you this. You 

said something that was so critical just a moment ago. You said 

something had to happen on the ship, is that what you said? 

Admiral BONE. I believe, yes, sir. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. And so, while you are cooperating with NTSB, 

and you’ve got Ms. Hersman sitting right next to you, what would 

you tell them they need to look at first? You must have some idea, 

you must have, if you’ve zeroed it down to that ship. I mean, what 

do you think happened? What do you think went wrong? 

Admiral BONE. Congressman, I think, I can’t tell you all the 

things that went wrong. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. But, I want you to tell—— 

30 

Admiral BONE. Listen, I think, to be honest and fair to individuals, you know, the individuals on board the ship, to target one 

thing or another to be a causal factor, the causal or primary or secondary, like Ms. Hersman said, there’s usually a chain of events, 

and there’s a series of things that cause it to happen. And, having 

been a marine investigator, what may appear, just like it appeared 

to most people when they heard that the operator, you know, asked 

him if he still intended to go through, everybody jumped and 

thought, that vessel was targeting that pier and he should have 

warned him away, if I provide some other little bit of information 

everybody will jump on it and say, ah-ha, that’s the causal factor. 

I think that, as NTSB develops the full set of situation circumstances on this we’ll know it. We would have done, we would 

do the same thing, as part of our investigation we had completed 

preliminary investigation, when we passed, we weren’t complete in 

our investigation, and our investigation is ongoing parallel with 

NTSB’s, while we are supporting them. 

And, we’ll come to the conclusions that we come to at the end of 

the day. 

I’m not going to suppose, in fairness to the individuals, I’m not 

going to do that, sir. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. I just asked you to follow up on something that 

you said, okay? 

Admiral BONE. Yes, sir. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. I understand. 

Ms. Hersman, just one quick comment. The NTSB investigations 

are so thorough, and so, I mean, because they are supposed to be, 

and you do a great job, but it takes a while, doesn’t it? 

Ms. HERSMAN. Yes, sir, unfortunately, it takes a lot longer than 

everybody would like it to. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. And, the average investigation takes about how 

long, I mean, if you just add a guess, year, two years? 

Ms. HERSMAN. I would say a year, yes, sir. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. My concern is, I think going to some of the 

things that the Mayor said, we want to make sure that these 

things don’t happen again, I mean, like next month. And so, I just, 

I’m hoping that we can, as a Congress, can try to find ways, and 

we know you—we want you to do your investigation, we want it to 

be thorough, but we’ve got to make sure that we do some things 

in the meantime, I’m just saying this to our panel, that we need 

to deal with. 

And, Admiral Bone, I want you to stay on for the next panel, 

stay around for the next panel. Will you do that? 

Admiral BONE. Yes. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. All right. 

Mr. McNerney. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I certainly want to commend you for your leadership on this 

issue, and the Speaker for helping to organize this this morning. 

Mr.Cummings, or Secretary Cummings, we met a few weeks ago 

proactively to discuss delta water usage in the valley. And, this 

morning we are meeting reactively to discuss action that happened 

a few weeks later in related waterways. 

31 

Your agency is responsible for providing resources to deal with 

these sorts of issues. Do you believe that the State Resources Agency has sufficient resources for training and response in this sort of 

situation? 

Mr. CHRISMAN. Thank you for asking that question, a good question, and one of the early questions that, of course, we asked at the 

State level, do we really? 

And, quite frankly, at this stage of the game we think we do, but, 

quite frankly, what we are going to do through the investigation, 

through the joint investigation that we are going to do on this incident, we are going to ask those very, very tough questions. We are 

going to be very hard on ourselves, as a part of this overall investigation, we will have an answer for that. 

But, insofar as available resources to respond pursuant to State 

statute, in concert with our Coast Guard partners and others, yes, 

we did. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. Well, in that case, let’s go ahead and make sure 

that that’s a public process. 

Mr. CHRISMAN. Absolutely, sir. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. And, not behind some kind of closed doors. 

What specific recommendations do you have this morning regarding improvements in the system that we have right now, that failed 

us on November 7th? 

Mr. CHRISMAN. One, we just heard a conversation about that. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. Especially in light of the Mayor’s recommendations about the hulls and coordination. 

Mr. CHRISMAN. Absolutely. From where we sit, and we just heard 

a conversation about the volunteers, the unbelievable number of 

volunteers that we had here in the Bay area. It, essentially, was, 

obviously, gratifying, but we weren’t prepared, quite frankly, for 

the large numbers that came. We need to take a close look at that. 

We need to assess that. We need to make sure that, you know, that 

we can utilize all them. 

All of the trained volunteers that we had, that had trained prior 

to this event, actually did respond, and were used. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. So, you see that as your biggest weakness, managing volunteers? 

Mr. CHRISMAN. As I sit from where I sit in this stage of the 

game, we need to take a close look at that, we need to do a—we 

do a very good job of that here in California, in terms of involving 

stakeholders in our natural resources, management programs, and 

all that. It’s a part of the way we operate. We just need to do a 

better job. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. Well, speaking from the Fish and Wildlife perspective, how serious is the damage out there, and how long is it 

going to take for us to recover? 

Mr. CHRISMAN. We are just assessing that right now. As I indicated in my comments, the Governor, in an abundance of caution, 

closed the dungeness crab season, and, in fact, closed all fisheries 

in the affected areas laid out in the Executive Order. 

We are in the process now of testing herring, surf perch, dungeness crab, rock crab and mussels. They are being tested now, and 

what the Governor has asked us to do is to make sure to have 

those tests, those testings done, the results of that testing done, 

32 

and then to work between our Office of Emergency Health Hazard 

Assessment, and our Department of Public Health, and the Department of Fish and Game, have those assessments done by December 

1st, so we can, again, hopefully, there is no public health hazard, 

there has not been one, not been one at all identified up to this 

point in time, and we hope that that continues to be the case, and 

we can get these seasons open quickly. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. Other than volunteers that are getting themselves out there without preparation. 

Mr. CHRISMAN. That’s right. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. A member of your office was on board when the 

146 gallon estimate was given. 

Mr. CHRISMAN. Yes. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. Does he or she agree with that, and if not, why 

didn’t they make that information available? 

Mr. CHRISMAN. You know, Congressman, I don’t know the answer to that. That, again, we are going to have to get to the bottom 

of that, in terms of our assessment. 

The person was on board, again, as you indicated and you heard 

in the testimony, quite a period of time between the time that that 

initial 140 gallons, I think it was 140 barrels, 140 whatever it was, 

was released, and then the final assessment of the total amount 

given the assessment that had to get done. 

So, I’m not sure that that person on board could at that point in 

time have been able to assess the total gallons that actually were 

leaked. But, those are those things—— 

Mr. MCNERNEY. I mean, if you look overboard and you—— 

Mr. CHRISMAN. —that we are really going to take a look at. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. —see a trail miles long, it’s, obviously, more 

than 140 gallons. 

Mr. CHRISMAN. Well, again, as I said in my testimony, we had 

our people at the Incident Command, at the Coast Guard Center, 

and within 30 minutes our people were actually responding to the 

event, and were beginning to assess what was going on, and were 

beginning to deploy—— 

Mr. MCNERNEY. Well, this gets back to the resource question. 

Mr. CHRISMAN. Exactly. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. The people need training that are going to be 

taking those positions. 

Mr. CHRISMAN. That’s right. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. With that, I’ll yield back. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much, Mr. McNerney. 

Ms. Lee? 

All right, Mr. Miller. 

Mr. MILLER OF CALIFORNIA. Admiral Bone, you suggested that 20 

percent, this is really good, and I don’t mean you passed judgment 

or value on that, but as oil spills go. 

Admiral BONE. As oil spills go, 20 percent is considered good. Between 5 and 20 is what you see in oil spills, and I can tell you 

that—— 

Mr. MILLER OF CALIFORNIA. I think if most Members of Congress 

knew that we would probably recalibrate what we think the margin of prevention should be, because if you told your constituents 

33 

80 percent of the oil is going to just be out there in the environment. 

Admiral BONE. Congressman, just again, just as you heard Bill 

mention, within an hour it spanned four square miles, and then it 

moves with the tide, and it’s like being in a washing machine here, 

it goes in, and it comes out. 

Even if you had everything right there, I’m just—oil moves. 

Mr. MILLER OF CALIFORNIA. But, that goes to the question, we 

have a plan of disbursal of assets to clean up the oil that may not 

comport with the threat that exists today. 

Admiral BONE. Exactly. 

Mr. MILLER OF CALIFORNIA. Because those decisions were made 

in 1990 and in those early years, and even earlier, after the Oregon 

and the Arizona ran into one another, and we haven’t repositioned, 

apparently, we’ve run some exercises, but I don’t know if that’s 

changed or not, and I’ll leave that open for the record. 

But, if you look at the NOAA charts here, in hour one you had 

a fair shot at doing something with the concentration, and hour 

two you had a fair shot of doing something with the concentration, 

and probably even in hour six, given that there was calm seas, that 

there were calm seas. But, when the tide changed, the game was 

all over, in terms of picking up any volume of oil. 

Admiral BONE. I’d say, sir, within the first ten hours is really all 

you are going to have to get the volume of oil, because once it went 

to darkness you can’t see oil in the water. 

Mr. MILLER OF CALIFORNIA. No, I understand. 

Admiral BONE. So, you really only had ten hours to get what you 

are going to get. 

Mr. MILLER OF CALIFORNIA. But again, I think this raises the 

question, if the threshold now is that in San Francisco Bay we 

have an oil spill that we can expect under today’s conditions, and 

technology, and what we are doing with it, that about 80 percent 

will probably remain in the environment. 

Admiral BONE. Yes. 

Mr. MILLER OF CALIFORNIA. You get some—I mean, even evaporated. 

Admiral BONE. Yes, sir. I think, again, I think you are right—— 

Mr. MILLER OF CALIFORNIA. That’s just not going to work. That’s 

just not going to work. 

Admiral BONE. —well, I know, but what I tell you is, and although I didn’t even put it on here, the capacity, the maximum capacity required by law for a tanker is somewhere around 23,500 

barrels per day capacity. I’m just talking about skimming capacity. 

So, if we said this was your largest tank ship that came in to 

here, they exceeded that almost three-fold in the actual response. 

What I was trying to tell Members was that, what they went out 

with was everything they had, very quickly, they brought more on, 

they were sending stuff up from Los Angeles area immediately on 

this spill, even though it was only reported what was reported. 

And, I was trying to explain to folks, they were responding to the 

worst case or a large case event, not to the most probable, all the 

things that are in the planning functions. 

I actually think that the performance by the contractor in this 

case far exceeded what our standard was, and that’s why when 

34 

people said we aren’t driving them hard enough, you had a Government Federal on-scene coordinator, along with a State on-scene coordinator, and if they weren’t doing their job, we would take it over 

and we would direct the operation. 

Mr. MILLER OF CALIFORNIA. But, again, looking at the NOAA 

data, Dr. Conner, you are welcome to join in here, but when I was 

at the Exxon Valdez, you know, we were skimming for months. We 

were just engaged in public relations, that game was over, you 

know, within a day or so, given the body of water there. 

And, the same thing is going on here, we can keep talking about 

how many skimmers we were applying after hour six, seven and 

eight, that’s interesting, but they are not picking up much. 

Admiral BONE. Right. 

Mr. MILLER OF CALIFORNIA. But, they look good out there. 

Admiral BONE. Well, they are getting, they are doing what they 

can to keep the rest of the water, I mean—— 

Mr. MILLER OF CALIFORNIA. Yes, I understand. 

Admiral BONE. Yes, sir, there was another 8,000, if you look at 

it, I mean, there was, in fact, the first day there was 8,000, the fact 

that you had another 8,000 that didn’t get into the wildlife areas, 

didn’t, you know, injure more birds and mammals, I think was still 

worthwhile pursuing. 

Mr. MILLER OF CALIFORNIA. I’d just like to raise one other point, 

and I’m sorry to use your time. 

Admiral BONE. Yes, sir. 

Mr. MILLER OF CALIFORNIA. Mr. Lantos made a very specific 

point, we’ve known for many, many years where the Bay Bridge is. 

We have another hazard sitting there in the Bay rocks, and everybody knows where they are. 

Admiral BONE. Yes. 

Mr. MILLER OF CALIFORNIA. But, they could rip the bottom out 

of any one of these ships at any given time, given the deviation 

that took place here in margins of safety, you are talking about 

2,000 feet. I just want to raise that, because we don’t have time to 

go into it. 

My colleagues have questions. 

Admiral BONE. I wouldn’t argue that. 

Mr. MILLER OF CALIFORNIA. Thank you. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much, Mr. Miller. 

Let me just ask you this one last thing, and then we’ll yield to 

the Speaker. 

And, this is something that has concerned me and you know this. 

You know, in the recent reorganization of the Coast Guard, the 

Service established sectors, is that right? 

Admiral BONE. Yes. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Which merged entities previously known as 

groups that were primarily responsible for Search and Rescue and 

Marine Safety Offices, which were primarily responsible for vessel 

inspection and compliance, environmental protection, and response 

to environmental situations. Marine Safety Offices included a Port 

Operations Department that specialized in pollution response. 

This specialty no longer exists as a specialty within the newly 

created sectors. 

35 

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. I think post 9/11 what 

we did was, we stretched the responsibilities of the Coast Guard, 

and I’m wondering do you believe that we now—and while we 

stretched the responsibilities we didn’t necessarily bring along the 

expertise, didn’t necessarily bring along the finances that were necessary to take on all those responsibilities. 

Do you think the Coast Guard has what it needs to do this kind 

of work? 

Admiral BONE. Let me first answer your question, I mean, respond to your statement about we no longer have the expertise. 

The reality is, we do have the expertise, we demonstrated it. We 

brought together people that did search and rescue, along with people who do oil spill response, collectively. 

Just like this case, you have a safety incident, at the same time 

you have a pollution incident. The pollution responder had seven 

years experience that came on scene. The marine inspector who 

went on scene to assess the damage had 17 years marine safety experience. The petty officers that were assisting had three years experience, another one seven years experience in marine safety. We 

have the expertise, sir. 

And, in fact, you know, post 9/11 the assets that Congress gave 

us, the MSST boats, that’s how we got, we had two MSST boats, 

one of them actually brought the marine inspectors and the investigation team over. The other one went and immediately started 

looking at, where’s the oil, to help find out. We didn’t have those 

before. 

I used—I’m a marine safety guy, I’m a prevention guy, and I do 

response. The reality is, years ago when it was a group and an 

MSO, if I called up and I said, I need a boat to go do an oil spill 

response, they’d say, wait a minute, this is a SAR boat. We don’t 

do that. 

In today’s environment, it’s all under one head. You still have 

pollution response, and you have search and rescue, collectively. 

What you’ve done is, you’ve given synergy, this Congress has provided us more resources to actually make sure that we can go and 

respond to all threats, all hazards. 

The issue of marine safety that you are actually talking about is 

a capacity issue. What we did was, during this time frame, of this 

build up of security, we received more assets for the security portion of that job. 

At the same time, the industry grew almost 100 percent, the marine industry, and what we didn’t do was keep pace with the resource base so that we could provide the services that the marine 

industry had come to expect, meaning within the time frames and 

within the level that they expect. 

The expertise, I’ll just give another example. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Okay, I got that, we are running out of time. 

Admiral BONE. Yes, sir. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. I guess I—you’ve been excellent in explaining to 

me all of the wonderful, the expertise we have. Then, what do we 

need to do? Just tell us that. 

Admiral BONE. You need, just exactly what the Commandant has 

provided you sir, we need the additional resources in marine safety, 

not that we don’t have technical capacity, we need the additional 

36 

resources within that so we can grow it to provide the services commensurate with the growth in the marine industry, especially, following Katrina, where the towing industry and the growth that the 

Gulf has seen is huge. 

The Port of Los Angeles Long Beach has almost doubled, but we 

haven’t provided the number of marine inspectors, the number of 

marine investigators, to actually carry out that function with the 

service delivery that actually industry needs for efficient and safe 

operation. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. So, in the meantime, we have a problem then. 

Admiral BONE. Well, what we have is an industry that’s unhappy 

because they are not—they are getting delays. We aren’t going to 

let the ship in until it’s safe, but now we are telling them, wait offshore until we can get someone there. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Right. You are going to be on for the next panel. 

Admiral BONE. Sure. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Madam Speaker. 

Speaker PELOSI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I had not intended 

to speak again, just to take in the established facts that you are 

allowing us to do today, but I can’t resist having heard the presentation of this panel. First I want to thank them for their presentation, and I thank you, Mr. Chairman, for giving us this opportunity to establish the fact, to recognize the needs, to see how this 

happened and how it can never happen again. 

At the opening of our hearing, the Mayor put forth some questions on the table that I had hoped would be asked by this panel. 

It’s about time, time makes a difference in the response, as the 

Chairman, Chairman of his Education and Labor Committee, our 

distinguished Chairman, showed you, the time made all the difference in the world in the response. 

I still haven’t heard anything from this panel that responds to 

the challenges put forth, or the questions put forth, by the Mayor 

of San Francisco and, therefore, the people of San Francisco. 

I’m very pleased that the official family, Aran Peskin was here 

earlier, so many members of the official family are here, speaking 

eloquently to the concerns that we have, because it happened right 

here. But, it spread to all of the districts that you see here, and 

again, this is a national resource. 

Admiral Bone, you know the respect that I have for the Coast 

Guard, we’ve been together on a number of occasions here in the 

Bay area, and I take great pride in commissioning the Pike and 

display that memorabilia in my office with great pride. And so, I 

am more willing to give the Coast Guard the benefit of every doubt 

in this. 

When the Commandant, Admiral Allen, called my office on Friday, a couple days after the spill, and told me that he was doing 

an investigation of how this happened, I said, Admiral, with all due 

respect, your credibility is greatly diminished in this, you cannot do 

a credible investigation of yourself, when so many of the questions 

that are arising from this are why didn’t the people of this Bay 

area know, when that spill presented a health hazard to people 

who work there, recreate there, and the rest. 

So, I told him at the time that we would be calling for an independent investigation, and the NTSB, we’ve heard from Ms. 

37 

Hersman, what I’m discouraged about, though, is that it will take 

a year, as Mr. Lantos indicated. that’s just too long. It’s just too 

long, especially, since this could happen again and nobody knows 

why anybody didn’t call somebody and say this happened. It’s ridiculous. 

So, I want you to know that in addition to what we are hearing 

here, I will be asking the Homeland Security Committee, which has 

jurisdiction in this matter as well, in the Appropriations Bill, Mr. 

Chairman, you and I have discussed this, to call for an Inspector 

General’s investigation of how this happened as well. 

One way or another, sooner or later, and, hopefully, sooner, we 

will get to the bottom of this. 

Again, these Members up here have made this Bay a priority and 

their life’s work, and their political careers as well. 

One of our former associates, Speaker Leo McCarthy, was instrumental when he was Speaker, he made this plan possible for the 

Bay, that we would protect it, and it just seemed to have—accidents do happen, we want to know why it was preventable, but the 

fact that all that time could go by, all that opportunity lost, is 

something that I don’t understand, having listened for days and 

weeks now, and I think our—the people we represent deserve better answers than we are receiving. 

Again, I say that, as you know, with a special fondness for the 

Coast Guard, so it makes me sad. I was glad that Admiral Allen 

came out last week, a week ago, many of us who are gathered here 

walked the shore with him, to take a measure of what had happened in that week. We can do that every Monday, but the fact is, 

we need the answers, and we need them very, very soon. 

And so, before this panel was adjourned, I wanted you to know 

that with all due respect for all that you did present, this time gap 

is something that has had an impact, and we have to know why. 

Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you again for the attention you 

have paid to this, as soon as you knew what the gravity of the situation was, and I wish you had known that sooner. But, we didn’t 

have that available to us. 

Thank you. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much, Madam Speaker, and I 

think you can summarize what the Speaker just said by saying we 

can do better, we can do much better. The people of this great 

State and our country deserve it. 

We’ll move on to our next panel, but thank you all very much 

for being with us. Admiral Bone, you can sit right where you are. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. We’ll now call up the next panel, panel three, 

Mr. David Lewis, the Executive Director of Save the Bay, Mr. Zeke 

Grader, Executive Director of Pacific Coast Federation of Fisherman’s Associations, Captain Thomas Hand, Bar Pilot, San Francisco Bar Pilots Association. 

As I said a little bit earlier, we would hope that you would try 

to stay within your five-minute time period, and let me just make 

a suggestion that you are very fortunate to have Admiral Bone sitting right next to you. So, if there are some issues that you want 

to raise, this is the perfect time to do it, okay? 

Mr. David Lewis 

38 

TESTIMONY OF DAVID LEWIS, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, SAVE 

THE BAY; ZEKE GRADER, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, PACIFIC 

COAST FEDERATION OF FISHERMAN’S ASSOCIATIONS; CAPTAIN THOMAS HAND, BAR PILOT, SAN FRANCISCO BAR PILOTS ASSOCIATION 

Mr. LEWIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Madam Speaker, and 

Members of Congress. 

I am David Lewis. I’m the Executive Director of Save the Bay, 

and I’m grateful for the opportunity to add my brief testimony 

here. I hope my full statement can be made a part of the record. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. So ordered. 

Mr. LEWIS. Save the Bay, and our 10,000 members, as many of 

you know, have been working for almost 50 years to protect and 

restore San Francisco Bay, and we are just one of many organizations of volunteers and professionals who have worked in the last 

ten days or so to respond to this crisis. 

I have to acknowledge to you that our initial response was frustration, because of the outpouring of support from people who 

wanted to help, and not much opportunity to direct them usefully 

to do that. That quickly became anger, as we saw the extent of the 

spill, and I have to say as a Bay area native, and in my current 

capacity, that really my overwhelming emotion is embarrassment 

at the level of preparation and its clear inadequacies, for what Congressman Lantos underscored as a clearly foreseeable accident. 

I want to say that you are asking all of the right questions about 

this incident, and its cause, and its impact. The answers are really 

crucial for improving collision and oil spill prevention, and improving integrated planning for coordinated response between the 

State, Federal Government, local cities and counties, and volunteers, that over the long term can reduce the damage that future 

oil spills cause, because they are going to happen here in the Bay, 

and other parts of our marine environment, as long as we rely on 

oil. 

We do appreciate the heroic efforts the key agencies have made, 

including the Coast Guard, not just professional personnel, but also 

volunteers in the last ten days, but it’s hard to conclude that the 

reaction and response was adequate. It was clearly too little, too 

late. 

Just commenting on some of the previous testimony, the issue of 

notification, and of publicity about the extent of the spill. The importance is really beyond, I think, the Coast Guard’s official requirements in the plan, because it delayed the deployment of local 

resources, including volunteer resources. I think the plans need to 

account for that better in the future, but even in this incident, if 

we tell people we think this might be a worst case scenario, among 

the things that could be done would be the greater deployment of 

containment booms, not just around the actual ship and where the 

oil was spilling, but in these remote areas around the Bay where 

the tides, wind and currents are transporting this oil. There’s no 

reason that we can’t have plans that include every marina and 

local creek advocacy group to have these kinds of containment 

booms to prevent oil from getting into the more sensitive environVerDate Aug 31 2005 16:52 Jul 08, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00058 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\39876 JASON
39 

ments that are spread all around this Bay. So, I think that is definitely something worthy of your attention. 

Short term, as these clean-up efforts continue, I think it’s very 

important that NOAA and the other State and Federal agencies 

have sufficient manpower and equipment, not just to work on the 

clean-up, but to do the damage assessment. They are, basically, collecting evidence that can be used against the responsible parties to 

make sure that we get all the restitution for the Bay and all the 

restoration resources that we should as a result of this. 

I think next and also important is the midterm planning. You 

know, we have the Environmental Protection Agency and other 

agencies that have experience with oil spills. When you leave, and 

the glare of the lights goes off, there’s important work to be done 

in months two through six, and I’ve already encouraged the Resources Secretary, State Resources Secretary, to try to convene 

those agencies to look a little beyond the horizon and get that planning started. 

I’d rather focus my remaining time on how this is really a wakeup call, not just on the Bay’s vulnerability to oil spills, but to the 

Bay’s overall fragility and the urgent and overdue work that is 

needed to protect and restore this Bay. And, I have some specific 

suggestions in my testimony. 

It’s really time to accelerate the restoration of tens of thousands 

of acres of shoreline habitat that’s already in State and Federal 

ownership waiting to be restored to tidal marsh and related habitats. The Bay needs it, the scientists have told us the Bay needs 

it. The property, most of the property is already bought, but we 

need the resources to do that restoration work. 

Secondly, you have the largest urban wildlife refuge in the Nation, which Ms. Lofgren and her then boss, Don Edwards, helped 

to create years ago, and it’s under funded. It’s doubled or more in 

size in the last few years, and it doesn’t have more resources just 

to protect and manage what is there, and it’s a great resource for 

everybody in the Nation. 

We need to tighten restrictions on trash and other pollution that 

are getting into our Bay every day. Fifty-eight thousand gallons is 

a lot of bunker oil, but millions of gallons of untreated stormwater 

discharge are going into our Bay every day, and they are poisoning 

fish and wildlife and other marine habitat. 

And finally, we need to step up enforcement of Federal and State 

clean water laws and pollution laws, which, frankly, in the last decade have not gone enforced as tightly as they should have, against 

polluters, including sewage treatment plants, industrial facilities 

and other violators. 

I know that your jurisdiction is the Coast Guard, but with the 

Bay delegation Members of Congress here, I feel it’s crucial to underscore those ongoing needs for the Bay. 

The Bay needs these actions to restore it to health, even more 

urgently after the devastating oil spill that we are suffering now, 

and the Bay area’s quality of life and economy depend on a healthy 

and vibrant Bay, and we depend on your leadership to make that 

reality. 

40 

So, if this Bay is a priority for all of you, as I know it is, those 

are some of the things we need to do in the coming year, and years, 

and we look forward to working with you to help to do that. 

Thanks for your support and concern, and for coming here today 

so quickly. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much, Mr. Lewis. 

Mr. Zeke Grader. 

Mr. GRADER. Yes, thank you, Speaker Pelosi and Chairman 

Cummings and Members. I really appreciate the fact that you have 

responded promptly to this oil spill by coming out here, and also 

appreciate the fact that you are cutting into your Thanksgiving 

holidays to be here with us to understand what happened. 

My organization represents working men and women in our West 

Coast commercial fishing fleet, and as you know fishermen, or commercial fishermen in particular, are probably those most impacted 

economically when one of these events happens. They are affected 

immediately as we’ve seen with the closure on the crab fishery, and 

I should say this is largely a de facto closure that the fishermen 

have put in, not the State. 

I also want to point out too, because they are not fishing right 

now, I also want to point out too that there’s long-term damage assessment with these type of spills. Fishermen, for example, in 

Prince William Sound, as a result of the Exxon Valdez, is still feeling the impacts there, particularly, to their herring fishery, and 

that was 18 years ago. So, this has both immediate impacts, as far 

as contaminating fish life, and making it unsuitable for consumption, but also has long-term impacts as far as the health and viability of these fish populations. 

I want to thank, particularly, this group that’s sitting here, because our West Coast Delegation, as the Mayor said, from the 

standpoint of the fishing industry, we really appreciate you. This 

group here, along with Congressman Mike Thompson, did a real 

job in trying to keep our fishermen alive, because as you know 

we’ve suffered now for at least three years of bad salmon seasons, 

much of them caused by this current Administration in their administration of water, both in the climate basin, as well as the Bay 

Delta, and I really want to thank you for getting that assistance 

to these fishermen, and I know how difficult it was. 

Turning now to the next disaster we have faced on our hands, 

is this what’s happened now with this oil spill in the Bay. Let me 

just discuss two aspects of it with you. 

First of all, the fisherman’s involvement in oil spill containment 

and clean-up can second some recommendations. Following Exxon 

Valdez, the passage of OPA-90, and here in the State of California 

the passage of Lempert-Keene-Seastrand, the private companies, as 

well as some of the agencies, contacted the fishermen about being 

involved in oil spill clean-up, and after all this made a lot of sense, 

they had the type of boats that they represented almost like volunteer fire departments, of resources out there that could be called 

in to place when an oil spill happened. 

We did see extensive training of much of the fleet during the 

1990s. However, towards the end of the 1990s we began seeing a 

fall off of that. The oil response companies, the private companies, 

told the fishermen, well, there’s simply no more money. Nobody 

41 

said to them at any point that their performance was unsatisfactory, but up until that time there had been training, including deployment of containment booms, there had been certification, they 

had participated in drills. 

We then brought that, and had brought that repeatedly, up when 

we were talking with the Coast Guard, with Cal Fish and Games, 

OSPR, which heads up California’s oil spill response, and also with 

NOAA. In fact, we brought that specifically to NOAA’s attention, 

and I know that at least three of their sanctuary people, when they 

had their big drill out here in 2006, said why aren’t you using the 

fishermen, particularly, since they were shut down at that time because of what happened with the climate. We got no satisfactory 

answer, absolutely nothing. 

So, in turn, when this hit, many of the people were in port, in 

fact, we had a large fleet sitting in port waiting to put their crab 

gear on, ready to go, no one was contacted, not by the Coast Guard, 

not by OSPR, not by the private contractor. On Thursday, the head 

of the Crab Boat Owners Association, which represents the local 

fishermen, contacted the Coast Guard. He was told, well, we don’t 

need your help. If you want to help at all, you can volunteer to 

clean birds. 

Finally on Saturday, the Port of San Francisco took it upon 

themselves, with their existing funds, and contracted with 20 fishermen. They were then put out in the water and worked until at 

least Tuesday, and they were effective out there. They put 

HAZWOPER people on board, and they were effective. Had they 

been called in within hours of the spill, we might have contained 

much more of this, but, basically, they were simply ignored. 

Also occurring at that time too is that we had asked for the closure on our fishery, the spill happened Wednesday, the following 

Wednesday we finally did get a response, and that was pretty anemic or lame, I would say, because only a very small part of the 

area was closed. Fortunately, most fishermen were refusing to go 

until we could get testing to make sure the crab are going to be 

safe, and we hope to have those tests in fairly soon. 

But, let me talk specifically about six recommendations we would 

have for you to take and consider. First of all, we need to have a 

provision, not just leaving it up to the private contractors, but mandate that we utilize local fishermen, this could also be charter fishing boat operators, the tugboat operators, and others, in our oil 

spill contingency plans. You can’t leave that up to the volunteers, 

we have to tell them to do it. 

Second, I think within the Unified Command you have to make 

sure that the local agencies are part of it, not outside the door with 

a liaison running back and forth. I think we could have done lots 

better had groups such as the Port of San Francisco, the National 

Park Service, the Sanctuary, involved in that room, not shunted 

outside. 

Third, I think we have to do a better job of finding out how to 

utilize local knowledge, not just here, but everywhere. That was 

one of the important lessons that’s come out of the oil spills in 

Alaska, particularly, the one that occurred in 2006. 

Fourth, I think we need to have better oversight of these private 

clean-up companies. If we are, basically, going to establish what I 

42 

would call private fire departments, then we better damn sure 

make sure that we have some public oversight, and we haven’t 

seen that for the past six or seven years, at least not effective oversight. 

Fifth, we need to have funding, and Mr. Lewis has already mentioned that, to make sure that the long-term damage assessments 

get done, that once this subsides and all the cameras have gone 

away, that we not forget about it, because as we know in the case 

of Exxon Valdez, that impact is still there. 

And finally, I think, and, perhaps, this has been answered by 

Speaker Pelosi’s suggestion, but we had thought that, perhaps, an 

independent commission, similar to what we had after Exxon 

Valdez, is needed, not because this is an oil spill of that magnitude, 

but simply we better be prepared when we do have an oil spill of 

that magnitude or some other worse event, and we certainly 

weren’t prepared for this one. 

Finally, if I can, Mr. Chairman, I do want to commend two 

groups that we really thought really came through, when most 

every other agency botched it. One is the Port of San Francisco. 

They were absolutely magnificent in all this. Second, I want to 

point out, specifically, the Beach Watch Volunteers of the Gulf of 

Farallones. They weren’t trained out of Seattle or Washington, this 

is a program they’ve had ongoing here for 25 years, and it existed 

primarily because of members of this panel right now who made 

sure that they had the funding to keep that going, and they really 

did a yeoman’s job. And, I also want to commend members of my 

own fleet, who I thought did a great job in the little bit of oil spill 

clean-up that they got to do. 

Thank you again, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much, Mr. Grader. 

Captain Thomas Hand. 

Captain HAND. I guess it’s good afternoon, Madam Speaker, Mr. 

Chairman, and Members of the Committee. 

I am Captain Thomas Hand, a San Francisco Bar Pilot. Thank 

you for inviting a San Francisco Bar Pilot to speak today, at least 

I hope I can say that at the end of this session. 

I hold a U.S. Coast Guard Unlimited Master’s License. I have 

been a professional mariner for 45 years, including 18 years as a 

Panama Canal pilot, and 17 years as a San Francisco Bar Pilot. 

The San Francisco Bar Pilots have navigated vessels in San 

Francisco Bay and tributaries for over 155 years. We service an 

area that includes the entire San Francisco Bay, and the Ports of 

Stockton, Sacramento and Monterey Bay. 

The waters of the San Francisco, Monterey, San Pablos and 

Suisun Bays, from the Gulf of Farallones to the Sacramento Delta, 

include nine bridges, 11 ports, 200 miles of shipping lanes, and 

countless hidden dangers. 

It is the job of the San Francisco Bar Pilots to know every fathom and every nautical mile. By California law, every vessel in excess of 300 gross tons, moving within waters under the jurisdiction 

of the Board of Pilot Commissioners, is required to use the services 

of a San Francisco Bar Pilot. 

Last year, the San Francisco Bar Pilots handled approximately 

10,000, I repeat that, 10,000 vessel transits. Since 1986, a comVerDate Aug 31 2005 16:52 Jul 08, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00062 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\39876 JASON
43 

prehensive training program, lasting approximately two years, 

geared specifically to the exceptional demands of barrier waterways 

has been a condition to becoming a San Francisco Bar Pilot. 

After apprenticeship and licensing, every pilot continues professional training to stay current in all vital areas. 

An applicant for the training program must be, at minimum, 

hold a valid U.S. Coast Guard Master’s License, with a radar endorsement. He or she must have at least two years command or piloting experience, and a Federal pilotage endorsement. 

As a State licensed San Francisco Bar Pilot, I am subject to the 

oversight, including disciplinary oversight, of the Board of Pilot 

Commissioners for the Bays of San Francisco, San Pablo, and 

Suisun. 

The Board selects among applicants for available pilot positions, 

establishes and administers the training requirements, both initial 

and continuing, for the pilots, issues licenses, oversees the operation of the Bar Pilots, investigates incidents on the vessels piloted 

by Bar Pilots, and takes remedial and punitive action against pilots 

when appropriate. 

This is a thorough, comprehensive and active regulatory system. 

The pilots take their professional responsibilities to vessel owners they serve and the communities in which they work very seriously. We are proud of our long history of safe navigation. 

Up to last week, the last major accident on the Bay was when 

two tankers collided near the Golden Gate Bridge in 1971. Neither 

vessel in that incident had a San Francisco Bar Pilot. 

I am here to answer your questions about pilots, piloting and the 

pilotage system in San Francisco Bay and its tributaries. 

Thank you. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you, thank you all very, very much. 

I think what I want to do is go straight to Ms. Lee, and I’ll defer 

my questions until after my other colleagues have asked theirs. 

Ms. Lee. 

Ms. LEE. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Let me thank 

you and our Speaker for your leadership and for these field hearings today. This is a very important moment for the entire Bay 

area, the State, and our country. 

As you know, the vessel actually departed from the Port of Oakland, which is located in my congressional district, and I wanted 

to mention that the Port of Oakland has gone on record to declare 

a local emergency in the port area of Oakland and is proceeding 

expeditiously with response activities. 

Also, on Saturday I had the opportunity to be with many of the 

volunteers in Berkeley, and I must say, and I want to join with all 

of my colleagues in commending the volunteers, because in spite of 

their outrage at what had happened they were moving forward 

with the clean-up under very treacherous circumstances. And so, I 

just want to also commend and thank the volunteers for this. 

Mr. Lewis, let me first of all thank Save the Bay and all of our 

environmental organizations. Save the Bay, of course, is again located in my congressional district in Oakland, and want to just say 

that the volunteers, as you see this, and as you mentioned, were 

in many ways, and again, Congresswoman Lofgren said that it 

doesn’t surprise any of us that we had many, many people willing 

44 

to volunteer, because of the treasure that we all have attempted to 

preserve over the years with regard to the Bay. But, I know, because I heard this over and over again, that there were many offers 

of assistance, but many of these offers were refused. 

And, I want to get, from your perspective, Mr. Lewis, what exactly occurred from Save the Bay’s point of view that prevented 

volunteers from moving forward? Was it only training? Was it lack 

of communication? Was it delay time? Or, what were the reasons? 

Mr. LEWIS. I think in the middle of a crisis is a bad time to try 

to put together a plan, and sometimes that’s necessary. So, I’ve 

seen the stacks of binders, loose-leaf binders, and plans from the 

State, and Federal agencies, it’s pretty clear that they did not anticipate using, not just volunteers who hadn’t been trained for technical skills, but the enormous number of personnel here in the Bay 

area from cities and counties who have appropriate training to do 

this work. 

And, I received calls from San Francisco City officials over the 

weekend after the spill as frustrated, that they had trained personnel, firefighters, others with HAZMAT training, who could have 

been deployed, and I’m sure that’s true for other cities and counties 

around the region. 

So again, instead of focusing on finger pointing, I think one big 

take away is that, and this is not true everywhere, you know, there 

are less populated areas of the Coast and open ocean where a spill 

like this couldn’t benefit from that, but we have 7 million people 

here, nine counties, over 100 cities, and that’s a lot of trained personnel. 

So moving forward, obviously, you have to have Incident Command and key agencies at the center of a response, but the next 

concentric circle should include the cities and counties that have 

these resources, and then a third circle of volunteers, maybe some 

of them have training and are already at the ready or on call, others who can be trained on short notice to do important work. 

Ms. LEE. Thank you very much. 

And, my second question is, in terms of just our entire ecosystem, and the wildlife, do you think we need to take our ecosystem in better consideration as we develop future plans, or do 

you believe they are, primarily, the mechanisms now are in place 

for the actions and for the protection of the ecosystem? 

Mr. LEWIS. I think there needs to be better emphasis on preventing these kinds of accidents, but an awareness that accidents 

are going to happen, and that the next one will not be the one that 

we’ve prepared for the last time. 

What that means is that, this ecosystem, which is so important 

to the State and the Nation, and, really, of international significance, is so stressed because we’ve treated it poorly for a very long 

time. And so, an incident like this, which is a small spill, a devastating spill, but a small spill, has more of an impact on the ecosystem because it’s so stressed, because it’s so fragile. 

The fisheries, the wetlands, the birds, some of these are endangered species, some of them are just threatened species, all of them 

are at risk. So, yes, we need more of a commitment to strengthen 

the ecosystem at the same time that we try to prevent accidents 

like this from occurring in the future. 

45 

Ms. LEE. Okay, thank you very much. 

And, Mr. Chairman, I hope, as we move forward, some of the recommendations which Mr. Lewis mentioned earlier will be a priority 

on the list of recommendations that the Committee comes forward 

with, because I think it’s very important that the funding be there, 

and all of the other issues that Save the Bay and other environmental organizations have presented, be part of the record. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Yes. I can tell you, we are very fortunate to have 

the Speaker right here, and she has a lot of passion with regard 

to this issue. So, enough said. 

Ms. Woolsey. 

Ms. WOOLSEY. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thank 

you, Madam Speaker, for today’s hearing, and thank you, Zeke 

Grader, for being here. 

It might be apparent to everybody, we each got to pick our own 

person to talk to, and ask questions of, and, Zeke, I’m not going to 

call you Mr. Grader because nobody knows Mr. Grader, we all 

know Zeke Grader, I picked you, because I wanted to, before I 

asked you questions, I wanted to acknowledge once again how important the role of the fishing industry, your fishing fleet, and the 

fisheries are in proving your stewardship about our waterways, and 

how important your voice is, and has been, and continues to be, 

and following a very poor, well, salmon seasons, and now a threatened crab season, how it is so clear that the safety of the consumers, the value of our fisheries and our fish, are so much more 

valuable than threatening it with any kind of fishing that wouldn’t 

be appropriate. 

I just appreciate you, and I want all of us to appreciate you, because you make such a difference. 

Now, speaking of experienced volunteers, your fishing fleet 

couldn’t be more experienced, trained, ready, and you told us the 

hard time you had getting out there. So, would you tell us now, on 

top of that, lay out for us the resources that fishermen can bring 

quickly to a spill, when you are invited in. 

Mr. GRADER. Thank you, Ms. Woolsey. 

As I mentioned, here in the Bay we had, because of the beginning of the crab season, we had had probably a couple hundred, 

maybe a hundred anyway, I should say 200 to 300 in this immediate area, within the Gulf of the Farallones, fishing vessels that 

were getting ready to go crab fishing. These boats could have all 

been utilized. 

Many of these boats are small, they can get into areas where 

some of the larger container vessels and clean-up vessels cannot, 

so they are important. They can get out and span out on the Bay, 

or in the case of the ocean, both I know the Half Moon Bay Association had attempted to participate in some of the ocean clean-up 

here, the Bodega Bay fishermen, both cases we have both large and 

small vessels that are capable of getting out and really, at least 

augmenting this oil spill so we could clean it up quicker and clean 

up more of it, I think, and it’s just a shame not to be able to utilize 

these vessels the same way it was a shame we didn’t better utilize 

the volunteers we have here around the Bay area in helping do the 

beach clean-ups and help with the wildlife. 

46 

So, I mean, it’s there, and we could not, did not know why, you 

know, they canceled these contracts in the ’90s, after people had 

been trained, nor why the agencies, and I say at least two of the 

agencies, three of the agencies, actually, two, both NOAA, and the 

Coast Guard, and Cal Fish and Game, did not act to try and make 

sure that those vessels were at the ready, nor did the private responder. 

Ms. WOOLSEY. So, would you have the absorbant booms with, I 

mean, how would you get your fleet, get a hold of those booms, to 

do the work? 

Mr. GRADER. What had happened in the past is, we had the 

equipment, booms, other clean-up materials, placed in strategic locations around the Bay or along the coast, where they could go to 

get them. It’s sort of like, you know, again, a volunteer fire department. First you put out the call to bring all the firemen there, then 

they go to the fire house, they get their gear, they get their trucks, 

whatever, and go out. It’s the same sort of concept here. It’s not 

really new, we’ve been doing it for about 200 years in this country, 

and we could have been doing the same thing here, utilizing, better 

utilizing them, and they simply chose not to. 

I don’t know if it was complacency or the fact that these agencies 

had other things that they felt were more pressing, but, you know, 

like I said, we have taken a relatively minor spill and turned it 

into a major mishap. 

Ms. WOOLSEY. And, are there appropriate containment booms for 

different areas of the Bay, based on tide and winds, that we should 

have in place? 

Mr. GRADER. I think this would be part of an overall oversight 

of this. I think we need to have oversight of what our capabilities 

are. I think that’s long overdue, and that’s the reason I think an 

independent look at all of this, whether it be the IG’s recommendation or an independent commission like we had after Exxon Valdez, 

you know, either one, just so we get the job done, because we really 

do need to have the oversight and determine what it is we need 

and have it in place. 

Ms. WOOLSEY. Thank you, and, Mr. Chairman, this is the voice 

of a non-bureaucrat, who is an experienced and trained volunteer. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Believe me, I can feel his passion up here, I really—and I really mean that, and I want to thank you, I feel all of 

your passions. 

Ms. Richardson. 

Ms. RICHARDSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

First of all, I’d like to applaud Speaker Pelosi for her leadership 

on this issue. Although this is in her own backyard, we would be 

really doing a disservice to all Americans to not realize that this 

110th Congress has had priorities set before it, and one of them absolutely has to do with the environment and our responses, and our 

responsibility, as Members of Congress. 

So, Speaker Pelosi, Members of the Northern California Delegation, and Chairman Cummings, thank you for bringing us forward 

so quickly. 

Before I go into my very brief questions, I just wanted to say as 

a recap of some of the comments, particularly, Admiral Bone, that 

I’m concerned with, that I heard you discuss. You said of our Coast 

47 

Guard, there are people who serve the public, you didn’t believe information was withheld intentionally, that reasonable actions were 

taken, national standards exist, and we didn’t anticipate volunteers. 

Let me say, first of all, just because we serve the public doesn’t 

mean we are immune to not responding appropriately. When we 

talk about responsible actions, this was an incident that required 

extraordinary actions. So, reasonable is not acceptable, when we 

have tragedies we need people to go to the next level. 

And, when you speak about national standards, we have to, as 

regions, adjust, just because we have national standards doesn’t 

mean that they are appropriate. 

In my area, 45 percent of the Nation’s cargo goes through my 

area. So, if my area is only basing itself on national standards of 

other areas that may be only take up 5 percent, it’s not going to 

be adequate. 

So, let me go to my questions, which are for Captain Hand that 

we have with us. 

Is it standard for a pilot to continue if radar is deemed inoperable? 

Captain HAND. I would think it would depend on where the vessel is at the time that you have to make that decision. 

Ms. RICHARDSON. Well, according to the National Transportation 

Safety Board, the pilot said he had concerns about the radar on the 

ship. According to one report, it conked out twice, once before departure from the port, and once after the vessel was underway. 

So, my question is, in that instance would it be standard for a 

pilot to continue? 

Captain HAND. In all due respect, not having been in that situation, I can deal with the hypothetical, obviously, if I was in a position myself, and I boarded a ship, and the equipment that I was 

counting on to get from A to B is not functioning properly, then I 

would not go. 

In fact, I think if one of your radars does go out, it’s supposed 

to be reported to the Coast Guard. 

But, as I say, I wasn’t in this, I don’t know all the details. It 

could have been that the radar just wasn’t tuned properly, I mean, 

I don’t know the details. 

Ms. RICHARDSON. My second question is, are pilots required to be 

familiar with electronic chart systems? 

Captain HAND. We are trained in electronic chart systems. We 

are constantly, we are constantly being trained, and now more and 

more pilots are beginning to use their own laptops, but they are not 

recognized by the IMO, I mean, so the ships that have the electronic charts, yes. 

You have to understand that pilots go on many different types 

of ships, face many different types of equipment, and so there’s an 

educational process, and the more experience you have, the more 

you learn. 

Ms. RICHARDSON. Well, in this case, I believe the pilot had experience of 26 years in this particular area, and stated that he was 

not familiar with the electronic charts. 

48 

My third question is, is it possible for radar and electronic equipment to work intermittently, meaning, be on, be off, going back and 

forth? 

Captain HAND. It is possible. 

Ms. RICHARDSON. Okay. My final question is, the records indicate 

that the pilot had been involved in four ship handling incidences 

in the past 14 years, and had been reprimanded the last year for 

errors in judgment for running a ship aground. 

Should an individual with these types of instances, the history 

and their background, have been piloting this type of vessel? And, 

if so, what steps does your organization take to ensure that your 

pilots are able to better perform their duty? 

Captain HAND. As to whether he should be piloting, that’s in the 

hands of the State Board. We, as a group, do not control that. I 

mean, it’s the State Board of Pilot Commissioners, and, obviously, 

whatever rulings they made it was in their decision to allow him 

to continue piloting. 

So, I don’t know how else to answer that, and I don’t know, quite 

honestly, all the details of those incidents. 

Ms. RICHARDSON. Well, according to an L.A. Times article that 

was stated, the Board of Commissioners, Board of Pilot Commissioners, Captain Patrick Maloney, had stated that this particular 

pilot was slightly below the average of the 61 Master Mariners in 

this particular area. 

So, are there any other suggestions you could give us as your association of how we could ensure these pilots can respond? 

Captain HAND. Again, with all due respect, I think that question 

should be posed of Captain Maloney, and to me, I don’t believe everything that I read in the newspapers. 

Ms. RICHARDSON. You sound like a politician. 

As I close here, I just want to say that this has done tremendous 

damage, not only to the residents, to the environment, to the businesses, and industries, but what I want to stress is that although 

we are here in the Bay area, and this happened in the Bay area, 

this is, unfortunately, a perfect example of the fact that this Nation 

still fails to be properly prepared to respond to a disaster, and 

that’s alarming to all of us. 

Thank you very much. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you. 

Mr. Lewis, let me just ask you, you had in your prepared remarks you said the Coast Guard’s preparation and performance before, and during, and after this accident, you said that there were 

shortcomings. Do you recall that? 

Mr. LEWIS. Yes. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. And, what did you deem those shortcomings to 

be? 

Mr. LEWIS. Well, I think that the investigations will reveal that 

in full, but at minimum there are shortcomings in planning. I am 

in no position to fault the execution of particular individuals in the 

Coast Guard, I have a deep respect for the Uniformed Services, 

and, actually, worked in the United States Senate on Armed Services issues for many years. So, I think that’s why you do investigations, and that’s why you take an independent look at what happened, so we can see if there were actually failures of execution. 

49 

But, I think at minimum what we’ve seen is that there needs to 

be more and better planning, and at the Coast Guard level, again, 

at minimum, that would include a broader approach to Incident 

Command that includes other capabilities, resources, and agencies, 

at an appropriate level. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Admiral Bone, I just keep going back to this time 

period, you know, the 140 gallons, and then the 58,000 gallons, and 

I’ve got to tell you, it’s troubling. I mean, I’ve listened to all the 

testimony, and the only thing I guess I can conclude is that we— 

and then when I heard the testimony with regard to the average 

amount of oil recovered it seems to me that we may have low expectations here. 

And, I think that we deserve better than that. I think that we, 

as Americans, deserve better, and you’ve heard me in talking to the 

Admiral about the Coast Guard, I just think that we need to raise 

our standards a little bit higher. I think it was Mr. Miller, Congressman Miller, that was going into that line of questioning. 

You know, and then I listen to Mr. Grader and talking about the 

fishing industry, and how, and I could feel your passion, I could 

feel it, I don’t even know you, but, I mean, seriously, I could feel 

that you felt the pain, and not just for your fishermen, but for the 

environment. 

And, as I was listening to both of you, I couldn’t help but think 

about something that in Florida, in Disney, I guess it’s Disney 

World, in Florida, when I took my daughter there last summer, it 

had, over the Animal Kingdom it has this statement, it says, ‘‘We 

did not inherit our environment from our foreparents, we borrowed 

it from our children.’’ 

And so, you know, I just—I’m wondering whether we are having 

these low standards, and as a result of that low standards, and 

being caught up in an atmosphere of mediocrity, that’s what I feel, 

those are my words, Admiral, whether we then let our children 

down. 

You know, it just seems to me that we can do better. This is the 

United States of America, this is—I mean, this is a country that 

sends people to the moon, and it seems as if we would be able to 

figure out something between 140 and 58,000. I mean, if you told 

me 588,000 I wouldn’t feel so bad, but 58,000, with a 200 foot gash 

in a boat, in a ship, I mean, it just—but I’m hoping that as we go 

along, and, Ms. Hersman, I’m glad you are still here, I’m hoping 

that as the NTSB goes through its investigation that you will bring 

to it the feeling, the urgency of all these Members up here, because 

their passion is strong too. I mean, they want this thing resolved. 

And, as Ms. Richardson said, this is not just about San Francisco. I mean, this kind of thing can happen in the Chesapeake 

Bay, where I live, and so—and it can happen all over this country. 

So, that would, I just hope that we can do better. 

Did you want to say something, Admiral? 

Admiral BONE. Yes, sir, I know we can do better, and I think we 

are already doing better. I think the Mayor brought up one of the 

most important points, and that was the inclusiveness of the City, 

not just in the planning, but in the exercises. 

I think the reality in today’s environment, in a post 9/11, is that 

we have to—these plans were written around just oil spill response, 

50 

and in today’s environment we have to really look at all threats, 

all hazards. 

We have, as he said, a state-of-the-art command and control and 

information network that was put together around emergent issues 

with security. We have to bring our planning processes together. 

We have to bring our command and control and Unified Command 

processes together, in order to do this better. 

One of the things that actually Congress has directed us is to put 

integrated command centers in place, so we’ve yet been able to accomplish that, but it would have linked this communication gap, 

we would have been together. We will be together without those 

centers, but it surely would have provided the State, the Federal, 

and the local collective eyes on scene when the information came 

in, and disperse out, for all threats, all hazards, for security. 

And, I’d offer that the Members here, and I’ve heard what 

they’ve said, I don’t disagree at all that we could have used, and 

informed better, the people to boom their local areas. We can do 

that today. We can do that tomorrow, and we’ll work towards that. 

We could have used emergency responders in the City of San Francisco, and I’ve committed to the Mayor to go forward and do that. 

I’m not going to wait until NTSB comes out to say this is what 

you need to do. We are going to do that. And, as far as the fishing 

boats, it was actually on day three when I came in and I turned 

to the Unified Command and I said, are we using the fishing vessels? We need to find a way to use these other vessels in order to 

increase our capacity and capability. 

And, they moved forward and the City actually stepped up and 

said, we will coordinate that, and we’ll lead that. And, the liaison 

effort, exactly, in the post 9/11 environment we have to have better 

coordination, better use of volunteers and people, and not just what 

I’ll call non-governmental entities, we’ve done all this planning 

with government entities, with industry. Industry brings a tremendous amount of capacity. We learned that after 9/11. Who do you 

think restored, and the whole business continuity issue, we have 

a lot—we can do better, and we are going to do better, and we will 

do better, and the Commandant, as you know, as you Members 

know, has committed to an ISPR process, which is an incidence 

preparedness review for this spill, which will look at those readiness issues, will look at the planning process issues, and will look 

at our response. 

And, I can tell you that he’s not—he put 90 days on this, he 

didn’t put a year, he said 90 days I want a report, it’s going to be 

made up of Federal, it’s going to be made of State, local and industry representatives. We are not going to wait, we are going to move 

forward, sir, and I want to make sure all the Members here know, 

I’ll be moving forward in deliberation and process to make sure 

that’s done. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. We are going to close down the hearing in a 

minute, but I want to, again, thank all of our witnesses for being 

here, and I want to thank—I’ll tell you, one of the things that has 

moved me more than anything else is the fact that so many volunteers came forward. That says a lot. People that were willing to 

take their time, perhaps, risk their health, because they wanted to 

51 

make something, an environment better for others. That says a lot. 

Nobody was paying them. 

And, it seems to me that if they can do that, we ought to be able 

to do our part, to make sure that we maintain a safe, and clean, 

and healthy environment. 

And, Madam Speaker, I want to thank you for your leadership. 

The urgency and the fact that you care so much about these issues, 

and long with all of our Members, I thank all of you. I’ve done a 

lot of hearings across the country, but never have I seen this kind 

of response from the local Members to come out and to give it everything they have, and I want to thank all of you. I truly do. 

And, to the people in this area, you have given us, in the Congress, the catalyst to do everything that we can to make sure that 

we leave a tremendously wonderful and better environment than 

the one we found when we were born, and we are going to work 

hard, and this is not the end. 

A number of the reporters have asked me a little bit earlier, 

where do we go from here. What we were hoping to do is shine 

some lights here, and I think we’ve shined some. I can’t say that 

I’ve been satisfied with all the answers. I agree with the Speaker, 

there are some things that I’m still unsatisfied with, but we’re 

going to get to the bottom of it. 

And, Madam Speaker, I want to thank you, too, for moving towards the IG investigation, because I think we need to shine as 

many lights as we possibly can, and we need to look under every 

single rock, and I think somebody said that they hoped that we 

would be around four or five years from now, so that when we look 

under those rocks we can see what was happening. Well, we plan 

to be there until this thing is completely resolved. 

And so, with that, Madam Speaker, I’ll yield to you. 

Speaker PELOSI. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Once again, I want to commend you for your leadership immediately upon learning of this spill, and then the plans that you 

made to be here for this important hearing. 

I join you in saluting the volunteers, that’s a reflection of the appreciation we have for San Francisco Bay, in terms of its vitality, 

of its commercial importance, of its recreational significance and its 

environmental just value that we place on it. 

I know I speak for all of my colleagues when I thank you for 

holding this hearing. You speak to their presence here, and I salute 

them as well. They are here because they are always here about 

the Bay, they, the word goes out and we are there. 

As I said, many of us were with the Commandant last week 

when we walked the beach, but we were all there when we dedicated the Don Edwards Refuge. Every piece of it is important. You 

remember that the, every piece of this is very, very important to 

us. 

And so, I am pleased especially, I know again my colleagues 

want us to give a special last welcome to Laura Richardson, a 

Member of Congress just for a few months, on this important Committee, and taking the time from coming from Southern California, 

a Member of this Subcommittee, to help Mr. Cummings when we 

go back to proceed with this. 

52 

I look forward to the ongoing work of the Subcommittee. Congresswoman Lofgren sits on the Homeland Security Committee, 

and it is that Homeland Security Department which her Committee oversees that we are asking the IG of that department to 

launch an investigation. 

Something is missing in this picture. Time equaled clean-up, 20 

percent may be satisfactory to you, Admiral, mediocre to the Chairman, but could it have been better, even in the interest of—even 

with the difference in those hours. 

So, recognizing the importance of it, I’m so impressed with the 

turnout that we have for this hearing as well, and the very serious 

interest that everyone has taken in it. 

I want to add to the comments of our colleagues in commending 

Zeke Grader, and Captain Hand, the Bar Pilots, Mr. Grader from 

the fishermen here, and Mr. Lewis from the Bay keepers, it is— 

your work, Save the Bay, excuse me, Save the Bay, your work is 

so important, and little did we know a month ago that we’d all be 

sitting here in a hearing of this kind without really the adequate 

answers for us to give those stakeholders and this magnificent resource that God has given us, the San Francisco Bay, and all that 

it flows out to. 

But, answers we will get, the sooner the better, and we simply 

could not treasure and value it without the work and leadership 

that all of you provide. 

So, thank you for that leadership. 

And again, Mr. Chairman, I want to give you a big San Francisco 

applause, for our Chairman. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much, Madam Speaker, and 

with that we will adjourn this hearing. 

Thank you. 

[The Subcommittee was adjourned at 12:50 p.m.] 

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