(11-08) 17:30 PST SAN FRANCISCO -- Heavy-duty bunker fuel oil has washed up on beaches throughout the San Francisco and Marin coastlines all day, leaving purplish sheens on the water, ugly black blobs in the sand, and hundreds of injured or dead birds.

Some 9,500 gallons of oil have been contained since a container ship rammed the Bay Bridge and spilled 58,000 gallons of its fuel Wednesday morning, U.S. Coast Guard Capt. William Uberti said this afternoon. But as he spoke, questions were swirling about why it took so long for emergency officials to contain the mess - and who will be to blame for the environmental disaster building by the hour.

Oil began leaking into the water after the Cosco Busan, an 810-foot container ship that weighs 65,131 tons, crashed into a tower of the Bay Bridge's western span in heavy fog at about 8:30 a.m. Wednesday.
Within an hour, six emergency vessels from the Coast Guard and Marine Spill Response Corp. were on the scene, officials said. Yet even by 4 p.m. Wednesday, officials apparently believed only 140 gallons of oil had leaked into the water.

They later learned that the actual spill amount was 58,000 gallons, Uberti said. The new total was not announced to the public until 9 p.m.


http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl.../BAD8T8PLU.DTL

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