Picture from the Chronicle


This outrages me.

I am not a boat specialist, so maybe someone else can explain to me why the hell freighters are always running into shit and then dumping their oil loads with the slightest puncture in their hulls? Is it necessary to design these things such that the water is separated from 58,000 gallons of oil by a thin sheet of tissue paper?

When I read the initial report, this was a minor incident. A day later, it became clear that that had been absolute bullshit. This is a MASSIVE spill, in a very delicate enclosed marine environment. I just can't believe this is right here in our backyard. Where we have walked on many occasions to observe and enjoy these very birds.

As the past few years we've been making an increasing habit of visiting the marine birds, this depressed me terribly. The Bay had been changing right in front of our eyes-- just in the past few years, the life there had really taken off. It seemed the birds and wildlife had been making a comeback, and then some dipshit with a recent history of running ships aground in the Bay Area runs a freighter into the Bay Bridge? Like it was a tight spot? No one has run into these towers in the 70 years the bridge has been open!

The birds and marine life we have been lucky enough to keep in the Bay Area are so delicate, and so beautiful, and so needed... If we can't design boats better, why the hell are we floating them into such a dense habitat?

Not that I think we couldn't design boats better. I just think no one wants to. Except, maybe the birds want us to?