The Politics of an Oil Spill

Several days ago, an oil tanker named the Athos I was steaming up the Delaware River between southern New Jersey and Philadelphia. Reports say the hull of the ship may have struck a propeller that was lost from a US Army Corps of Engineers dredging barge. The contact with the propeller--or whatever the object was--caused at least two gashes in the hull of the ship through which a significant amount of crude oil was released. First reports indicated that 30,000 gallons were released. Although this number sounds significant, it is in actuality quite small and easily contained. The problem of course, is that the amount of oil was in the hundreds of thousands of gallons range. Some estimates say 374,000 gallons.

The Delaware River (Click on map to enlarge) in that area is not far from the Atlantic Ocean and is extremely effected by the tide, the oil spread north and south quickly effecting about 30-40 miles of shoreline on both the PA and NJ sides and approaching DE. The clean-up is going to take alot of time and utilize alot of resources while closing the river for a time. Here's where the problems come in; who is responsible for the clean-up? The Greek shipping firm that owns the Athos I? The US Army Corps of Engineers if it is proved that their lost propeller caused the release? The Citgo refinery that was to receive the crude for refining?

The majority of these questions will be answered by lawyers over the next several years, but the important work of containing and cleaning up the spill can't wait for a gaggle of lawyers to haggle about liability. This is where the government comes in, in accordance with several environmental regulations--most notably the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 (OPA-90)--the government has far more authority to demand that all parties involved act quickly to avert a greater catastrophe. The government lacked this authority during the Exxon Valdez debacle. In that case, Exxon dawdled, Alaska was incapable of acting and the federal and state government had little to no authority to order an action taken.

The main goal is containing and cleaning up this spill, and thanks to one of the few good pieces of legislation to come out the do-nothing 1990 Congress, action is proceeding. One part of this law that has yet to be implemented is the double-hull provision. This part of OPA-90 states that all ships that will transport petroleum products upon US waters must be double-hulled. The problem is that the regulations fade this provision in between 2010 and 2015. If the Athos I was double-hulled, the spill most likely would not have occurred or would have been significantly less.