State blames aging tanker for oil spill
SEATTLE – An aging ConocoPhillips Co. oil tanker is responsible for a 1,000-gallon oil spill that tarnished 21 miles of Puget Sound shorelines, U.S. Coast Guard officials and the governor’s office said Thursday.
“We have a match, which makes us confident we know the source of the oil spill,” Gov. Gary Locke said in a news release.
Locke and Coast Guard Rear Adm. Jeffrey Garrett said state and federal lab tests showed that the tanker, Polar Texas, was the source of the October spill in Dalco Passage near Tacoma. Locke added that state officials “appreciate that the company has been working with us to figure out the answers.”
ConocoPhillips accused the government of withholding proof. Polar Tankers, a Long Beach, Calif.-based subsidiary of Conoco, filed a lawsuit in Thurston County Superior Court on Thursday, saying the state violated public disclosure law by refusing to release data concerning oil samples it collected from the spill.
“We do not believe we are the responsible party based on all the information we have to date,” the Houston-based company said in a news release. “ConocoPhillips has repeatedly assured the investigators that if they share their information and if it shows we are the responsible party, we will do the right thing.”
Department of Ecology spokeswoman Sheryl Hutchison said the state hadn’t yet seen the lawsuit, but that it disputes the company’s argument that it has the right to see the test results at this point.
The spill, reported Oct. 14, cost nearly $2 million to clean up. It left an oily slick as far south as the Tacoma Narrows and as far north as Eagle Harbor on Bainbridge Island.
Officials were not disclosing further information about the spill – such as the cause – because the investigation continues, said Coast Guard spokesman Jeff Pollinger.
The 899-foot Polar Texas went into service in 1973 and also has been known as the Arco Texas and the Chevron Hawaii, Seattle newspaper reports have said. It was supposed to go out of service on Nov. 19.
The tanker had six mostly minor oil spills from 1992 to 1999, the reports said. It dumped more than 1,000 gallons of crude oil at the Tosco Refinery in Puget Sound in June 1999.
Overall, it’s been involved in more than 30 “marine casualties” over the past 12 years, including a collision, equipment failures and injured crew members. Investigators boarded the Polar Texas Nov. 5 at Conoco’s Ferndale refinery north of Bellingham to question crew members, and at one point Coast Guard divers inspected its hull.