Fears of oil spill disaster grow

Heavy oil washed ashore in an Alaska wildlife refuge yesterday as huge waves, unrelenting winds and bone-chilling temperatures stymied efforts to keep a smashed-up freighter from spilling more fuel into the Bering Sea.

- Dramatic rescue of ship attempted in brutal seas

Last night, the search was suspended for the six missing crew members from the freighter, Coast Guard officials said.

The 738-foot freighter, the Selendang Ayu, had been headed to China carrying soybeans when its engines failed early Tuesday morning, leaving the vessel adrift. A Coast Guard helicopter plucked the six crew members off the foundering ship Wednesday, but it then crashed amid high seas and heavy winds.

The crew of the helicopter was rescued, but the six men from the ship were not found.

"We feel that if any of the men were on the surface, we would have found them by now," said Jim Lawrence, spokesman for IMC, the Singapore-based shipping company that owns the vessel.

Now cleaved in two and resting partly submerged just off Unalaska Island, about 800 miles southwest of Anchorage, the Selendang Ayu is oozing thick, sticky bunker oil that will be difficult to clean up and could harm endangered sea lions as well as sea otters, diving sea ducks, loons and salmon in the area.

Officials said there was also concern that birds would eat oil-coated soybeans, now floating in the water near the ship.

The spill in the Aleutian Islands is potentially the worst in Alaska since the Exxon Valdez spilled nearly 11 million gallons of oil in 1989.

Experts on bird and marine mammal rescue from Alaska and California began converging on the island yesterday. The coast near the wrecked freighter is inaccessible by land.

"It's very challenging to deal with logistically," said Jay Holcomb, executive director of California-based International Bird Rescue Research Center. "It's dangerous and complicated."

Worsening weather has slowed the response effort, said Howard Hile of Gallagher Marine Systems Inc. The Alexandria, Va.-based company is in Dutch Harbor managing the spill response for IMC.

Severe conditions delayed plans to fly over the area to assess the damage and restricted efforts by a crew trying to begin work in the most sensitive areas near the spill. The crew's 108-foot vessel couldn't get that far and instead laid boom -- an oil-absorbent barricade -- in a less-vulnerable sheltered cove.

"We're seeing 30-knot winds and snow blowing horizontal," Hile said. "It's supposed to get worse overnight and stay bad over the weekend, letting up by Monday. You ever see a photo of waves crashing around a lighthouse? That's the world here."

The spill occurred in a part of the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge -- which covers 4.9 million acres stretching all along the Alaskan coast -- that is a strikingly harsh landscape of rocky cliffs and gravel beaches. In summer, the mountains are covered in a velvety green fuzz. Freezing rain and snow are pelting them this time of year.

There are untouched streams that support numerous salmon runs. Seabirds and ducks feed and nest on the island.

"It's an incredible place," said Greg Siekaniec, manager of the refuge, said of the region around the spill site. "Right after the turn of the century it was recognized as such an incredible place for wildlife diversity."

Because it was headed across the Pacific, the Selendang Ayu was laden with about 500,000 gallons of bunker oil and diesel fuel.

Officials were unable to determine yesterday how much had leaked because they were still focusing on rescuing the six lost crew members.

Two Coast Guard cutters were standing by the broken sections of the Selendang Ayu, and another cutter with oil-vacuuming equipment was heading there from Cordova, said Petty Officer Amy Thomas. The vessel was expected to arrive today.

A 40-member response team was assembling in Dutch Harbor, a town on the other side of Unalaska Island from the spill site.

Plans were to shuttle pollution and hazardous waste technicians to the site to assess the damage and begin the cleanup, said Coast Guard spokesman Roger Wetherell.

The rugged coastline around Unalaska Island, as well its inaccessibility by road, pose unusual challenges for cleaning up the spill.

Winter weather, as well as only about seven hours of daylight, also are working against rescuers and cleanup crews.

"This time of year, with the weather being what it is in the Bering Sea, it's just a difficult area to get in and work," Siekaniec said.

The greatest threat to wild animals is when seabirds and sea otters become coated with oil, allowing water to seep in and chill them.

Cormorants have been spotted in the slick, but no animals have been rescued. If oiled birds begin turning up, Holcomb said, the strategy would be to capture and stabilize them at the site of the spill, warming them and giving them fluids.

They would be flown to a recovery site where they could be cleaned and nursed back to health. It generally takes about a week to 10 days for birds to recover.

Otters are more easily stressed and would be better treated close to where they're found and not transported, experts said.

Otter populations have been declining generally in Alaska, but the Unalaska population has been stable in recent years.

Seals and sea lions are less vulnerable to the effects of the spill because they're insulated with blubber, but they can still suffer eye injuries and other effects from the toxic oil. Responders generally don't catch the larger mammals, they said, but try to keep the oil away from them.

The island also is important for tribes dependent on its marine life for subsistence and paychecks.

Salmon, halibut, cod, seals and sea lions all are caught for food, said Sharon Svarany-Livingston, environmental coordinator for the Qawalangin Tribe of Unalaska.

"When you have a spill of this hugeness, you have to worry about the impact on the land also," said Svarany-Livingston. "We utilize berries for food and a lot of plants for edible uses and medicinal uses."

A commercial snow-crab fishery important to the tribes was supposed to open in mid-January, but some fear it may now be canceled.

Tribal members are interested in working on the cleanup, Svarany-Livingston said.

"They will have a hand in making sure that things are cleaned as they should be cleaned," she said.

"You don't want to take somebody's word for it. You want to see it for yourself."

Unalaska Island was marred by a 39,000-gallon fuel spill in November 1997 when the cargo vessel Kuroshima went aground.

"This one stands to be an order of magnitude larger in quantity," said Siekaniec. "But we don't know if it's left the ship yet or not."

The vessel had not been boomed by last night to contain the oil leaking out of it, Coast Guard officials said. It's unclear how quickly and effectively a cleanup can be mounted in the remote location.

This report includes information from The New York Times and The Associated Press.

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