Sunken tug spills fuel in Hood Canal

The pungent smell of diesel fuel and ribbons of pink-stained beach marked the spread of a spill near the Hood Canal Bridge Monday. Tribal officials said the fuel hit two miles of shoreline that support a multimillion-dollar annual harvest of clams and oysters.


		GILBERT W. ARIAS / P-I
	Workers Luke Ivey, left, and Heliodoro Medina-Garcia try to contain the fuel spill Monday near the docks at the Caicos Mill in Port Gamble.

The fuel escaped when an 82- year-old tugboat sank overnight under mysterious circumstances that prompted its caretaker to suspect the vessel was purposely sent to the bottom of Port Gamble Bay.

The 92-foot, 56-ton Agate sank near the old Port Gamble lumber mill. So did another tug, the 65-foot Legacy, which had been moored next to it. Both had been out of service for some time.

"Someone messed with these lines," said Tom Lampman, who said he was the former skipper of the Magic -- the Agate's previous name -- and had been caring for the vessel after selling it.

"Two tugs that had not had any problems with water in them or anything like that for a long period of time don't just all of a sudden decide to sink, one in front of the other," Lampman said.

Across the bay at the reservation of the Port Gamble S'Klallam tribe, tribal leaders said they were worried about the effects on the shellfish harvest. Three other tribes also have harvesting rights in the area: the Jamestown S'Klallam, Lower Elwha S'Klallam and Suquamish.

"We have two miles of beachfront here on the reservation, and we harvest clams and oysters on those beaches, and these are all very productive beaches," tribal Chairman Ron Charles said. "It's really concerning to us."

The tribe operates a salmon hatchery in the area, and the fish are being caught at this time of year, he said. Tribal members harvest clams, oysters and geoducks for food as well as income.

"If it means you're not going to work for the foreseeable future, it's a pretty big deal to that individual," Charles said. "It's also more than an economic thing to our tribe, because we've been here so long and we've been dependent on (shellfish) for our subsistence, too."

The spill was first reported at 9:25 a.m. Monday.

By late afternoon, Coast Guard and state Department of Ecology officials still offered only sketchy details, including a preliminary estimate that perhaps 100 gallons of the red-dyed diesel fuel escaped from the Agate. The Legacy contained no fuel oil. (The fuel in the Agate was dyed red because it is exempt from state gas taxes levied on fuels used on the road. The non-road use of fuel, including in boats, is not taxed.)

Disputing the official estimate, Lampman said the Agate contained no more than 5 gallons of fuel.

Lampman said the boat's name was changed from the Magic to the Agate after he sold it about 1 1/2 years ago to Passage Tug and Barge, a Washington corporation.

Monday's spill response came almost exactly a year after an oil spill marred Dalco Passage, between Vashon Island and Tacoma, and nearly two years after another spill near Edmonds ended up fouling Suquamish shellfishing grounds.

"I am alarmed. This is the third oil spill we've had in Puget Sound in a relatively short period of time," said John Fabian, who is active with the 2,700-member Hood Canal Coalition in fighting a proposed gravel mine near the waterway.

Fabian said the damage from the spill will help emphasize that "an industrial port facility inside Hood Canal, which is already teetering in its ecological health, just doesn't make sense."

The second vessel that sank, the Legacy, belongs to Caicos Corp., a Bainbridge Island firm that builds bulkheads and does other marine construction. Luke Ivey, a Caicos official, said the vessel had been out of commission for some time and had no fuel aboard.

Port Gamble S'Klallam tribal members noticed diesel odors as early as 3 a.m. Monday and found spilled fuel on the beach later in the morning.

The tide started to go out about 6 a.m., spreading the fuel to the north. Some of it spread toward the Hood Canal Bridge as well.

The leak of oil from the Agate had dissipated by early Monday afternoon, Coast Guard officials said. Divers were summoned to inspect it and the Legacy.

Ecology spokesman Larry Altose said he did not know of any immediate reports that wildlife had been harmed. The state called in contractors to deploy protective booms to keep contaminated water from reaching environmentally sensitive areas.

Although some high winds blew through the Puget Sound region in the early morning when the vessels apparently sank, gusts at Port Townsend and Bremerton hit only about 25 mph, said Dana Felton, a forecaster with the National Weather Service.

P-I reporter Robert McClure can be reached at 206-448-8092 or robertmcclure@seattlepi.com. P-I photographer Gilbert Arias and P-I researcher Marsha Milroy contributed to this report.

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