CA: Oil Leaks Found in Rickety Tanker

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Oil Leaks Found in Rickety Tanker Unloading halted at Tosco Rodeo refinery

Charlie Goodyear, Chronicle Staff Writer Saturday, October 7, 2000

RODEO -- The delivery of oil from a decrepit tanker in San Pablo Bay was halted yesterday at a refinery dock in Rodeo after officials found oil leaking into the ship's ballast tanks, raising fears of an explosion.

The discovery came after a week of trouble for the Neptune Dorado. The ship, flying under a Singapore flag, was detained Sept. 28 in San Francisco Bay by the U.S. Coast Guard after officials found more than 30 safety and environmental violations onboard.

The ship was deemed so bad that the Coast Guard demanded that it leave the bay, but later the agency relented and allowed the ship to proceed under escort to Tosco's Rodeo refinery.

Officials said the crew had virtually no safety plan for transporting and delivering the oil. The ship's firefighting pumps were not working and a sewage system was leaking into the interior of the vessel, among other problems.

Coast Guard Lt. Rich Teubner said an official monitoring the transfer of oil onboard the Neptune Dorado noticed an oil smell coming from a ballast tank yesterday afternoon. Two other tanks also contained oil fumes.

Authorities planned to pump nitrogen into the tanks to eliminate the chance that oil fumes could build up and lead to an explosion. Tosco agreed to halt the transfer and said the ship was being kept at the refinery dock.

``We have the ship at a stable position by the pier until we get all the results back from our tests,'' Teubner said. ``Tosco is being very proactive. They disconnected their systems.''

A Tosco spokesman referred all questions about the leak to the Coast Guard.

Teubner said the ship did not pose an immediate danger to its crew or anyone else in the area.

The Neptune Dorado has not visited the United States since 1996 and experts onboard yesterday were baffled as to how oil cargo had leaked into the ballast tanks.

``We're going to investigate to see where that hydrocarbon came from,'' Teubner said. ``The ship has been out of the United States so long we don't know what they were doing. There is no reason why cargo should be in the ballast tanks.''

Several hours earlier, the Neptune Dorado accidentally blew soot from an exhaust stack into the water near the refinery dock. An environmental firm that had been supervising the delivery quickly cleaned up the pollutants. Tosco reported the incident to Contra Costa hazardous material experts.

Teubner said about 180,000 of the 580,000 barrels of oil transported by the Neptune Dorado had been delivered to the refinery before the leaks were noticed. Officials said they were not sure when the transfer would start up again.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2000/10/07/MN103780.DTL

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), October 07, 2000


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