Firm handling oil cleanup is little-known, largely self-regulated

By PETER FIMRITE
San Francisco Chronicle
Monday, November 19, 2007

The success or failure of the massive fuel-oil cleanup in San Francisco hinges on a little-known Louisiana company that works for big oil-shipping lines and is largely self-regulated.

The O'Brien's Group, which specializes in managing messes, is handling the disaster for the container ship Cosco Busan, which sideswiped the Bay Bridge on Nov. 7, spilling 58,000 gallons of fuel oil into San Francisco Bay.

The disaster created an uproar among politicians, community activists and volunteers who want to know who is responsible for the miscommunication and foot-dragging that allowed time for strong bay currents to disperse the sludge and foul beaches throughout the Bay Area.

The buck, as it were, may stop with the Cosco Busan, but the blame might well be laid on O'Brien's gangway.

"A lot of questions need to be asked of the O'Brien's Group," said Sejal Choksi, program director of the environmental group Baykeeper, which has been highly critical of the way the cleanup operation was conducted.

The country's largest oil-cleanup management company has scarcely been mentioned in the flurry of inquiries over delays and other problems that have plagued the operation.

The O'Brien's Group, founded by a former U.S. Coast Guard officer who gained fame in the 1980s as the Red Adair of oil-spill cleanup, is part of the cleanup command structure along with the Coast Guard and the California Department of Fish and Game's Office of Spill Prevention and Response.

In reality, though, O'Brien's officers are in great measure responsible for the tactics, deployment of equipment and movements of 350 managers and 1,500 workers handling everything from dead-bird pickup to skimming operations.

The Coast Guard took the blame for not communicating the full extent of the spill in a timely fashion. But under protocols developed after the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster, it was the responsibility of the O'Brien's Group to handle the initial communications and response.

The company was the first to be contacted by the ship after the accident and was supposed to notify the cleanup crews, the Coast Guard and the Department of Fish and Game.

Virtually everything that O'Brien's was supposed to be in charge of has since been criticized by lawmakers, environmentalists or the public.

Among the myriad questions that have yet to be answered is why there was a nine-hour lag between initial reports of only 400 gallons of oil spilled and later reports that 58,000 gallons had poured into the bay. There are also questions about delays while large numbers of cleanup workers were brought in from out of state. Environmentalists have accused cleanup organizers of not placing booms around sensitive wetlands and wildlife habitats until it was too late.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has started an investigation, and lawmakers around the Bay Area have criticized the spill response.

The lack of answers coming from the top of the command structure has created widespread outrage, even as some beaches are being reopened.

Some fingers have been pointed at the Cosco Busan captain and the crew for not properly reporting the extent of the problem, but the ship had hired the O'Brien's Group to represent it in all aspects of accidents exactly like this one.

"There are all kinds of things that impact the ability to respond," said Jim O'Brien, the founder and president of the company, insisting that his people did the best job they could under the circumstances. "It's the same in every spill. You can take any element, particularly at the outset, and say, 'Woulda, shoulda, coulda.' "

Few people outside the oil and shipping industries know much about the O'Brien's Group. It is, however, the most established cleanup-management company in the United States, probably the world, and it has the longest track record.

Jim O'Brien, who started the company in 1983, has often been compared to Red Adair. In fact, O'Brien was once employed by the famed extinguisher of oil fires to clean his private boats.

O'Brien handled his first spill in 1969 when he was in the Coast Guard. By 1973, he was handling oil spills full time as a member of a Coast Guard strike team out of Hamilton Field in Novato, Calif. He retired as a lieutenant colonel in 1983 and founded O'Brien's Oil Pollution Service, or OOPS Inc., in Slidell, La.

A big, gruff-looking man, O'Brien has a disarming sense of humor that is apparent in the name of his company.

He was already considered one of the premier experts in the field when he was called in to help manage the Exxon Valdez disaster in Alaska's Prince William Sound. The next year the federal Oil Pollution Act was passed, requiring oil tankers and other ships to, among other things, hire cleanup managers in case of an accident. The law gave O'Brien's company an enormous boost. His work managing cleanup operations in Kuwait after the first Gulf War sealed his reputation.

The law requires ship owners to outline oil-spill prevention and response plans, have enough insurance to cover up to $1 billion in damage, and designate a management company and an "Oil Spill Response Organization" to clean up in the event of an accident.

In 1997, Seacor Holdings Inc. purchased OOPS, keeping O'Brien as its president. As the company expanded, it became known as the O'Brien's Group.

(San Francisco Chronicle staff writers Kevin Fagan and Carolyn Jones contributed to this report. E-mail Peter Fimrite at pfimrite(at)sfchronicle.com.)