Oil spill report berates Coast Guard

WASHINGTON -- The first major report on the San Francisco Bay oil spill praises the work of response crews in cleaning up the oil, but criticizes the Coast Guard for failing to alert local authorities in a timely way and involve local volunteers.

The report does not shed new light on why the freighter Cosco Busan struck the Bay Bridge Nov. 7, spilling 58,000 gallons of bunker fuel. The review, ordered by the Coast Guard, focuses on how all parties responded in the two weeks after the spill.

Rear Adm. Craig Bone, the agency's top official in California, said over the weekend that his agency takes some hits in the report -- especially for underestimating the size of the spill and failing to quickly notify Bay Area officials. State and federal officials also are criticized for turning away hundreds of volunteers eager to join the cleanup.

The report "clearly will identify areas with regard to communications, with regard to maximum utilization of resources ... including volunteers," Bone said. "There won't be any surprises along those lines."

But Bone said the report also praises the agency and private cleanup crews for recovering almost 40 percent of the oil spilled into the bay -- a much higher percentage than is typically recovered. Still, the spill killed more than 1,000 birds, and Bone acknowledged there is much work to be done to restore wildlife habitat.

The review was ordered by Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Thad Allen after his agency came under sharp criticism by state and local officials for its handling of the initial response.

The report does not single out any individual for blame, but offers 100 lessons learned and 128 recommendations for improving the response to future spills, Bone said.

The review is being led by Rear Adm. Carlton Moore, a retired Coast Guard Reserve officer who also was Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's administrator of the state Office of Spill Prevention and Response until 2005.

The report looks at how both state and federal agencies failed to get the word out quickly after the ship hit the Bay Bridge at 8:30 a.m. Nov. 7. Early estimates pegged the size of the spill at 140 gallons. It wasn't until almost 5 p.m. that the Coast Guard learned the size of the spill was 58,000 gallons. The agency didn't alert the public until 9 p.m., when it issued a press release detailing how much oil was discharged into the bay.

Bone said the report highlights the need to improve communications with local officials and to distribute information more swiftly to the news media.

"Unfortunately some of the early miscommunication with the media moved us down a road that made it very difficult to overcome," he said. "We could do that better."

This report, released Monday, is an interim review, with the final report expected in May. The National Transportation Safety Board is expected to complete its investigation of the causes of the accident by the end of the year. The U.S attorney in San Francisco is conducting a criminal probe, and state officials and a congressional committee are conducting their own inquiries.

E-mail Zachary Coile at zcoile(at)sfchronicle.com. For more stories visit scrippsnews.com