Response to the American Trader Oil Spill1

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ABSTRACT A spill of approximately 9,500 bbl of Alaskan North Slope crude oil (27.5 API gravity) occurred on February 7, 1990, when the 818-foot, 37,768-gross-ton, U.S.-flag tank vessel American Trader grounded on one of her anchors while attempting to maneuver into Golden West Refining Company's Huntington Beach offshore mooring at position 33°37.7’N, 118°00.5’W. Oil flowed from a three-foot-by-five-foot puncture in the No. 1 starboard wing tank, and a 40-square-mile slick developed during the next three days. By February 13, 14 miles of recreational beach along Southern California's heavily populated coast had been affected by the spill. The response mounted by the federal on-scene coordinator (OSC) and the responsible party as a result of this accident became one of the most successful open sea oil recovery operations in U. S. history and has been called a textbook example of shoreline cleanup and interagency cooperation. The relative effectiveness and short duration of the cleanup were due to favorable weather, fast response, availability of oil spill recovery equipment, good strategic planning, and cooperation between the responsible party and the government. An extensive offshore response effort (15 major skimming systems, 25 support vessels), coupled with fair weather and mild sea conditions, resulted in unusually high open sea oil recovery rate (25.1 percent of the total crude spilled). Major wetlands, including the Bolsa Chica National Wildlife Refuge, Newport Bay, and the Santa Ana River, were protected with containment booms within eight hours after the accident, excluding the oil slick from these vital estuaries. An intensive beach cleanup with sorbents and shovels began with initial shoreline oiling on February 8 and peaked on February 13, when some 1,300 workers were deployed to combat heavy oil sludge forced ashore by southerly storm winds. By employing people in lieu of heavy machinery on these fragile beaches (Huntington Beach, Newport Beach, Bolsa Chica Beach), environmental impact was minimized and a rapid, thorough cleanup was attained. By March 2, all beaches had been cleaned; the rest of the cleanup consisted of low-pressure cold water flushing and high-pressure hot water spraying of oil-contaminated jetties, piers, and rocky shorelines. On April 3, 1990, final cleanup operations were completed, and the OSC concluded all monitoring activities associated with this incident.