Environment

Reporting Errors in San Francisco Oil Spill.

by unofficialsquaw.com | November 12, 2007 at 09:22 pm

728 views | 11 Recommendations | 4 comments

gCaptain's editors have been amazed lately by the number of errors in both media
reports and political commentary related to the the container ship Cosco Busan that allided with San Francisco's Bay Bridge. We first reported on the confusion between the words allision and collision but that debate is mostly semantic. The errors have grown as the debate has reached a national audience.

The most troubling mistake is reports that infer or flatly state the vessel is a tanker. This mistake has been made numerous times as can be seen by doing a simple google news search for the incorrect term but most seriously in USA Today's, America's most widely distributed newspaper, headline (page A6 of November 12th's edition): "Coast Guard: Tanker crew tested for substances."

The media is not the only "informed" party making this mistake. The San Francisco Chronicle reports on a statement by San Francisc's mayor:

Newsom saw the disaster as an even larger statement on the weakness of America's dependence on oil.

"We can do better than large oil tankers coming in and out of the
bay of San Francisco, and move to a more energy independent future," he
said at Crissy Field. "We'll continue to have these kinds of disasters
inevitably if we continue to have more tankers come in and out to feed
our addiction."

So for those in the media or with a passing interest here is a picture of an Oil Tanker and the Cosco Busan:

Tanker

Oil Tanker

Container Ship

Container Ship Cosco Busan

The major difference between the two is: a tanker transports liquids
and a container ship transports containers filled with solids (i.e.
toys, home furnishings, industrial supplies...). So before the flood of
emails arrive... if the ship that hit the San Francisco Bay Bridge was
not transporting any liquids why did it have 58,000 gallons aboard? The
answer is... for the same reason your car carries 24 gallons of
gasoline.

The fuel spilled in the bay was all to be used by the ship's enormous engines
during the long transit back to China. Had this ship been an oil tanker
the spill could have been as large as the one caused by the oil tanker
Exxon Valdez... then again probably not since the oil in those ships
are now required to be protected by a double hull.

gCaptain' has reported on the following story and continues its coverage of the San Francisco Oil Spill: LINK

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comoms

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 00:22 on November 13th, 2007

Thanks for clearing that up gCaptain. That is important to note and I am sure that most people were unaware. Especially when the press have mislabled the term in news stories.

I think the average person though, is interested in the oil that was spilled which has caused an enormous amount of damage to the enviroment. From what the reports said, this type of oil was actually a thicker consistancy than that of an oil tanker and is harder to clean up.

That is taking nothing away from your post as it is very interesting to know and any attention brought to the subject is good! Sometimes it takes disasters such as this to "get our attention"