Aging tanker focus of spill inquiry

The search for the Dalco Passage oil spiller is focusing on an aging tanker, even though the vessel left the area about seven hours before the spill was discovered. The tanker had even reached Port Angeles before the slick was reported near Vashon Island last month.

The Polar Texas is owned by Polar Tankers, a subsidiary of ConocoPhillips that has been the subject of three oil spill investigations in Alaska this year.

In two of those cases, Polar Tankers captains failed to immediately report the spills, but the company notified the U.S. Coast Guard as soon as it learned of them, said John Devens, executive director of the Prince William Sound Regional Citizens Advisory Council.

In the third case, an investigation continues into allegations that a junior ship's engineer deliberately dumped oil.

The Polar Texas left the U.S. Oil refinery by Tacoma's Commencement Bay at 5:50 p.m. on an outgoing tide on Oct.13, records of marine traffic show. It reached the Port Angeles vicinity around midnight.

A tug captain reported the Dalco Passage spill south of Vashon and Maury islands about 1:15 a.m. Oct. 14, about an hour and a half after the tide started coming back in.

The spill wound up fouling more than 20 miles of shoreline, prompting a nearly $2 million cleanup.

An oceanographer with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said yesterday that in calm conditions, spilled fuel could slosh around with the currents for hours without spreading rapidly or going ashore.

The seas were reportedly calm that night. But after the tug captain reported the spill to the Coast Guard, winds from the south kicked up that would have coated the southern shores of Vashon and Maury with a sheen of oil.

A Coast Guard spokesman at the agency's Marine Safety Office in Seattle would not confirm or deny yesterday that the investigation is focusing on the Polar Texas.

But an official with knowledge of the investigation said Coast Guard investigators are convinced the Polar Texas is responsible for the spill.

Investigators have not approached Houston-based ConocoPhillips with such a conclusion, company officials said.

"ConocoPhillips has not been made aware of any findings from the ongoing investigation," the company said in a prepared statement. "We do not believe we are the responsible party based upon our own ongoing internal inquiries and we continue to cooperate fully with the investigation.

"ConocoPhillips is a member of the Puget Sound community and safe and environmentally responsible operations are our top priority here and in all areas in which we operate."

Coast Guard investigators boarded the Polar Texas and several other ships known to have been in the area that afternoon or evening, taking samples of fuel oil so they could be matched with oil found on the beaches.

Investigators have not made public the results of that analysis, but that apparently is what convinced them the Polar Texas is implicated.

The head of the Coast Guard's forensic laboratory in Groton, Conn., would not discuss the Dalco Passage spill. Officials at the state Ecology Department, whose Manchester lab helped examine the samples, also kept mum yesterday.

"While the investigation is continuing we're not commenting until we're ready to make an announcement," said Ecology spokesman Larry Altose.

Wayne Gronland, head of the Coast Guard's Connecticut lab, said agency scientists analyze isoprenoids, also known as "biomarkers," that identify a batch of oil. They look for the molecular structure of the prehistoric plants that later became oil, and it's a very sure way to identify oil spillers, he said.

Defense attorneys don't usually argue with those scientists, but rather attack the way the samples were handled, he said.

"The science is very solid, and usually if there's an issue, it relates to the chain of custody or something else related to the paperwork," Gronland said. "There has not been a successful challenge of the science in the 30 years we've been doing it."

The Polar Texas, an 899-foot tanker that went into service in 1973 was formerly named the Arco Texas and the Chevron Hawaii. It is scheduled to go out of service on Nov. 19.

The ship has been involved in more than 30 "marine casualties" over the past 12 years. The incidents range from injured crew members and a collision to equipment failures and oil spills, according to Coast Guard records.

From 1992 to 1999, the vessel had more than a half-dozen spills, primarily in Alaskan waters and most of them minor, the records show.

In June 1999, the tanker dumped more than 1,000 gallons of crude oil into Puget Sound at the Tosco Refinery, according to Coast Guard records. Almost 600 gallons were scooped back out of the water.

Polar Tankers' troubles in Alaska this year all involved vessels other than the Polar Texas, Devens said. In one, oily water was spilled off the deck of the Polar Discovery.

Another deck spill near Canadian waters involved the Polar Endeavor, Devens said.

"The oil went in the water, and in both of those cases the captain of the ship failed to report it," Devens said.

In the third incident, on the Polar Alaska, a whistle-blower aboard the ship alerted authorities about a junior engineer allegedly rigging an oil-water separator so it dumped oil overboard, according to Devens and a state investigator.

"ConocoPhillips management voluntarily reported these events to the authorities, and the company has been cooperative and will continue to cooperate fully with the appropriate authorities," the company said in response to those charges.

In another incident, the company was fined for discharging poorly treated wastewater from a drilling platform in Alaska's Cook Inlet.

As the Puget Sound investigation moves forward, investigators had to ask: How could the oil have sat puddled in an estimated 4.5-acre slick for about seven hours before it was discovered?

That's a possibility, said NOAA scientists, who spoke in general terms and would not discuss specifics of the Dalco Passage spill.

While cleanup crews were scrambling to get boats on the water and booms deployed the day the spill was discovered, NOAA scientist Glen Watabayashi was hunkered down at his computer in his Sand Point office.

Feeding in statistics on tides, currents and wind, Watabayashi was trying to work backward in time to when and where the spill might have occurred.

He didn't have much to go on.

Oil ages and evaporates, which can give clues as to when it was dumped.

But bilge waste -- a likely source for the spill -- would contain a mix of aged fuel, making it nearly impossible to determine how long the petroleum had been in the water.

The spill site had few tide and wind gauges, so it was tough to know the precise conditions around the time of the spill. Knowing what the winds are doing is key to building models to understand how and where the fuel will be carried.

Watabayashi also didn't know if the oil was spilled in one dump, or for a period of time as the vessel motored up the Sound.

The model relies on "truth factors" -- irrefutable information about the spill.

In this case the truth factors amounted to when and where the spill was spotted and where it wound up some 10 hours later when aerial photos were taken.

The NOAA oceanographer ran dozens of scenarios, which have been handed over to the Coast Guard investigators. None could be considered a definitive answer to the spill's source.

"We didn't know enough answers to nail it down," said Watabayashi, who was one of the modeling program's creators.

Scientists do know that the night was calm, with winds that were "light and variable."

If there's little wind, the oil can stay offshore, sloshing around with the currents, Watabayashi said.

"You've got to have wave action, or it just sits there," he said.

P-I Reporter Eric Nalder contributed to this report. P-I reporter Robert McClure can be reached at 206-448-8092 or robertmcclure@seattlepi.com

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