Governor blamed over spill

Senate leader says staffing too low; Schwarzenegger aide disputes charge

Kevin Yamamura and Matt Weiser
The Sacramento Bee
11/13/2007

As oil spill cleanup continued Monday on the San Francisco Bay, state Senate Leader Don Perata rebuked Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger for undermining the state agency charged with spill response.

Perata, D-Oakland, seized upon a 2005 state audit that determined the Office of Spill Prevention and Response, or OSPR, was understaffed despite having a funding surplus. He said the situation has hindered the agency's ability to deter oil spills in advance and react quickly when disasters arise.

"The tragedy we're seeing in the San Francisco Bay right now is the price we pay when the governor lets critical jobs stand empty – and lets polluters off the hook," Perata said in a statement.

Schwarzenegger spokesman Aaron McLear disputed that charge. He said Schwarzenegger has added $7.3 million and 9.2 positions to OSPR since 2003.

"If Senator Perata can identify ways in which the state response could have been better or was lacking in any way, we'd like to hear those suggestions," McLear said. "This is the first we've heard of concerns that OSPR was not executing exactly how it needed to in response to this oil spill."

The spill occurred after the container ship Cosco Busan struck the Bay Bridge on Wednesday and leaked 58,000 gallons of oil, closing beaches and killing seabirds.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, questioned the California head of the U.S. Coast Guard about his agency's response in a visit Monday to the San Francisco Bay. The Coast Guard is leading the spill response with assistance from OSPR. Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency to free up resources last week.

The 2005 Department of Finance audit was highly critical of the administration and the Department of Fish and Game, which oversees OSPR. At the time, the spill agency was sitting on $18 million generated by a special fund that charges 5 cents on every barrel of oil sold in the state, money that should have been used, according to the audit, to hire staff to police the shipping industry and cleanup companies to ensure a rapid response to spills.

There are more than 7,400 cargo ships that visit state waters. All are required to have spill cleanup plans approved by the state, and most contract with one of eight cleanup companies to handle any spills. These companies also must be licensed by the state.

OSPR is authorized by law to conduct surprise annual inspections on the shippers and the cleanup companies. But Ted Mar, chief of the marine safety branch at OSPR, told The Bee that his agency inspects less than 1 percent of the cargo ships each year, and has never conducted surprise annual inspections of the cleanup companies. Instead, inspections typically occur only when a license is renewed, which is every three years for cleanup companies and every five years for shippers.

Surprise inspections are vital to ensure that cleanup companies can rapidly muster the personnel and equipment necessary to contain an oil spill, said Linda Sheehan, a Senate appointee to a technical committee that advises OSPR. These companies are expected to respond first to any oil spill, not the Coast Guard or Fish and Game.

Sheehan said that, ironically, Schwarzenegger's Department of Finance refused to hire more spill prevention staff, even though it also wrote the audit that uncovered that problem.

"For some reason, the state has held back on allocating the staff that's needed even though there's funding there to do that," said Sheehan, who is also executive director of the California Coastkeeper Alliance. "So in fact, it's never been adequately staffed."

The audit also found that OSPR was unable to provide reliable information on spills and spill response due to poor data collection. Its failure to allocate enough resources to this analysis, the audit states, restricts the agency's ability to accurately assess oil spill trends and causes.

More recently, some hiring has been authorized for the program. In the 2007-2008 budget year, the administration authorized $843,000 and 6.6 new positions to improve oversight of cleanup contractors. Another $415,000 and 1.9 new positions were allocated to improve mapping of sensitive habitats and infrastructure that could be damaged by spills.

Another member of the OSPR technical committee, Gary Gregory, acknowledged the department has been understaffed, but said the latest budget allocations should correct that.

"I think the programs are fully funded," said Gregory, chief of the marine facilities division at the State Lands Commission, which shares the fund to prevent spills at shore-based facilities. "There is a surplus in (the fund) today, but at current funding levels, that surplus will be gone in just a few years."

Perata also criticized Schwarzenegger on Monday for vetoing Senate Bill 1001 last month. The measure would have reduced the size of water quality boards while adding new requirements intended to make the state's nine regional panels more effective. The governor, in his veto message, said he believed the bill would not accomplish its stated goals.

Perata said the Republican governor has undermined the latest spill response by failing to fill positions on the San Francisco Regional Water Quality Board, which now has four sitting members in nine seats. The board cannot meet next month unless Schwarzenegger makes more appointments, according to Perata and the board's chairman, John Muller.

But McLear said even though two of the board's members resigned Oct. 31, they could serve an additional 60 days if they choose to. He added that the board does not play a role in the immediate spill response and that Perata's bill would not have taken effect until January.

Muller said the board will largely play an enforcement role in the spill aftermath, a process that likely will occur in several months after an investigation. The board also will focus on long-term cleanup efforts.

He said the board's executive officer is involved in cleanup briefings but that the panel itself does not have an active role at the moment.