Coastal Services Center

On February 4, 1999, the most serious oil spill in Oregon’s recent history occurred when the 639-foot freighter called the New Carissa ran aground about 150 yards off a stretch of remote beach three miles north of Coos Bay. Over the next 106 days, as salvage operations were hindered by severe winter storms, the New Carissa would leak between 70,000 and 140,000 gallons of oil, killing about 3,100 shorebirds and seabirds.

Potential environmental risks from the grounding included impacts to the nearby South Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve (NERR), which is within Coos Bay near Charleston, Oregon.

"Oil released by the New Carissa provided a serious wake-up call," says Steve Rumrill, the research coordinator for South Slough Reserve. "We were unprepared for an oil spill in the estuary."

Over the following three months, the reserve staff provided important environmental information to and learned how to work within the Incident Command System, labored to prevent spilled oil from entering the estuary, and participated in the Natural Resource Damage Assessment process.

Although the reserve escaped severe environmental damage in this instance, the spill made staff members keenly aware of the estuary’s vulnerability. The reserve is now prepared to respond immediately to an oil spill and is part of the state’s oil spill response plan. The reserve’s readiness was tested recently when a small spill occurred.

"Coastal resource managers shouldn’t shy away from participating in emergency response," Rumrill says. "Our role is clear, and there is a place for us."

First Response

On the day of the New Carissa’s accident, Rumrill was en route to a conference in Washington State . "I was traveling between Coos Bay and Portland when I got the word," he recalls. "I knew this was significant, and I turned around and came back."

Rumrill and other reserve staff members were immediately thrust into the unfamiliar Incident Command System, which was being led by the U.S. Coast Guard.

"It took us a few days to understand how the system worked," he says. "The Incident Command System is well tested and well designed, and it’s the responsibility of the NERR to understand how it works."

Rumrill quickly brought himself up to speed on Incident Command System protocols by looking up information on the Internet.

"At first you feel like an outsider," Rumrill says, "but as you gain understanding you recognize that they need our help, they want our help, but there is a proper avenue to work through, and you need to know what that is."

Working in the System

Backing up Rumrill’s view is a U.S. Coast Guard report, "‘Crisis on the Coast’: Federal On Scene Coordinator’s Report and Assessment of M/V New Carissa Oil Spill Response."

"Ideally," the report says, "participants in a response should have prior training in ICS [Incident Command System] or at a minimum receive some orientation to ICS upon their arrival at the incident in order to help them function most effectively within the response organization."

The report notes that before the incident ended, "58 different agencies and groups and approximately 700 people would lend their expertise and resources to the response."

Under lessons learned, the Coast Guard suggests exercises should be conducted that engage, among others, leaders in the environmental community.

"My advice to other NERRs," Rumrill says, "is to take responsibility to get up to speed
on the command system."

Damage Assessment

During the first few days after the grounding, winter currents were moving south to north, meaning that any leaked oil should be moving away from the estuary.

"This was a good scenario in a bad situation, but with our local knowledge of the surf currents, we knew that some of the water in the surf zone would make its way down into the Coos Bay estuary," Rumrill says.

Rumrill saw the need to begin collection of samples inside Coos Bay and the South Slough as part of the Natural Resource Damage Assessment process. "We were welcomed into the decision-making process at that point," he says.

The estuary assessment required a team of about eight to ten people, mostly reserve staff members, to be trained in collecting environmental samples that would be admissible in court. Samples of sediments, water quality, and all living resources needed to be taken both before and after oil impacted natural resources to determine the level of contaminant exposure, Rumrill explains.

Rumrill and his team worked for two months to complete the assessment.

Part of Rumrill’s responsibilities in undertaking the assessment was coordinating with the Oregon Departments of Fish and Wildlife and Environmental Quality, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the state’s tribes.

Protecting the Estuary

By day five of the incident, small tarballs began to appear on ocean beaches. Beach cleanup and "booming" of sensitive habitats and marinas in the estuary were getting underway.

Reserve Manager Mike Graybill and other reserve staff members helped place oil-catching booms around at-risk areas of the 4,700-acre reserve. As Graybill monitored a flooding tide, he observed that oil was getting past the booms into the estuary.

"At that time, we didn’t have accurate GIS [geographic information system] maps, so we had to help [the responders] understand where important areas were, such as sensitive eelgrass beds, recreational clamming areas, and salt marsh restoration sites," Rumrill says.

Fortunately, relatively little oil reached the sensitive areas in the slough. While oil was documented in eelgrass beds, the reserve detected no long-term resource damage.

"The spill occurred north of us, and if we hadn’t had those few days to gear up, we would have been caught flat-footed," Rumrill says. "The lesson for us was, ‘be prepared.’"

The Aftermath

The reserve now has a special oil spill cabinet that contains necessary materials to conduct sampling for a Natural Resource Damage Assessment. This includes sealable glassware for sampling with chain-of-custody strips, acetone, latex gloves, aluminum foil, and cameras.

"We could be moving with five minutes warning," Rumrill says.

Since the New Carissa grounding, the reserve staff has worked with the Coast Guard, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and Oregon Department of Environmental Quality to help develop and update the state’s Geographic Response Plan.

"This planning takes place on a regional scale," Rumrill explains. "We were included for our knowledge of the natural resources." Rumrill is now on the state’s oil spill emergency call list.

A year after the New Carissa , reserve Education Coordinator Tom Gaskill headed up a workshop on lessons learned from the grounding and community preparedness for future oil spills.

Quick Response

The reserve’s oil spill response was tested early last December when Rumrill received word that a spill had occurred near the town of Brookings , about two hours south of the reserve.

The message was that "50 to 100 gallons of oil" had spilled into the harbor. "But it was unclear if that was 5,200 gallons of oil or 50 to 100 gallons. We responded as if it was 5,200 gallons until we could get clarification."

While serious oil spills are rare, the grounding of the New Carissa brought the point home for the South Slough Reserve that it’s important to be ready for such emergencies.

"Another lesson," Rumrill says, "is that the coastal management community has intimate knowledge about resources and the way water moves along our coastline. That knowledge is really valuable."

For information about the Natural Resource Damage Assessment process, point your browser to www.darp.noaa.gov/library/1_d.html . For information on the Incident Command System, go to www.uscg.mil/hq/g-m/mor/Articles/ICS.htm. To read the U.S . Coast Guard’s report on the New Carissa response, go to www.akrrt.org/Archives/Response_Reports/AAR_NewCarissa_Vol-I_1999.pdf. For information on South Slough NERR’s oil spill response, contact Steve Rumrill at (541) 888-2581, ext. 302, or Steve.Rumrill@state.or.us.