Part 1 of two parts
FRIDAY HARBOR, Washington—As a pair of transient male orcas cruised northward up the western side of San Juan Island on Sunday, it became apparent that they were headed straight toward the large platform with a crane that had just the day before pulled up a large fishing boat, the Aleutian Isle, which had gone down into 200 feet of water a month before, spilling diesel into the surrounding waters. So a couple of boats got in their path.
The boats were part of a special Coast Guard response team that had been drilling in the vicinity in the weeks after the spill, equipped with oikomi pipes, underwater bells that set up a noise to repel cetaceans like the two male transients. And their efforts Sunday seemed to work, but perhaps not quite as intended: Instead of going farther out into Haro Strait, the mammal-eating Bigg’s orcas instead diverted their path in closer to shore passing inside of Low Island just off County Park, frightening the row of harbor seals who had secured themselves on the rocky haulout.
T-60E, a mammal-eating ‘transient’ orca, comes in much closer to Low Island than the seals lying along it would have liked.
But the tactic still had more or less the desired effect: When the two males (identified by experts as “the T-60 brothers,” T-60D and T-60E) continued northward past the platform, they remained close to the shore and then traveled on without coming close to where the Aleutian Isle wreck—still loaded with a sealed-up tankful of diesel—lay suspended on its side. Problem averted—for now.
But the month-long drama around the Aleutian Isle sinking has been a powerful wakeup call for the federal, state, and international authorities charged with protecting the fragile ecosystem of the Salish Sea from a man-made disaster like an oil spill, especially after their initial response was slow and muddled. For the scientists who monitor the health of those waters—which includes the endangered Southern Resident orca population—the incident was an alarming demonstration of a reality they long feared: No one is prepared for any kind of a major spill—the likelihood of which keeps increasing—in the Salish Sea.
The scene on the western side of San Juan Island, which looks across Haro Strait’s shared waters to British Columbia’s Vancouver Island, has been fraught since Aug. 13, when the 49-foot purse seiner Aleutian Isle went down in waters just north of the island’s County Park. Its five crew members were all rescued, but its tank with 2,600 gallons of diesel in it went down with the ship. An undetermined amount of the diesel promptly created a two-mile sheen in the Strait within a couple of hours.
As bad fortune would have it, the Southern Resident J pod had been visiting the southern end of San Juan Island that morning, and began making their way north toward the diesel spill later in the afternoon. However, they only made it as far north as Lime Kiln Lighthouse—about two miles south of the spill—before abruptly turning left and heading out westward toward Victoria and Vancouver Island, the western side of which they spent the next several weeks occupying. Everyone watching breathed a sigh of relief.
“We were all nervous they were going to do what they usually do, which would’ve taken them straight into the diesel,” Seattle-based oceanographer Scott Veirs told KUOW.
Veirs said that when the Aleutian Isle sank, it was near a slack tide, a period when the areas often-fearsome currents subside to a slow crawl. Afterward, the currents turned north, pushing the spill in the direction opposite of the orcas.
“That’s incredibly lucky,” Veirs said. “If the tides had been reversed, the whales would probably have swum right into the emerging slick.”
Fortunately, the diesel that had been initially released quickly evaporated over the next several sunny days, and whatever was in the tank mostly stayed put. However, the Aleutian Isle did not: Over those same days, the wreck—perched on a steep underwater canyon slope that descended to 700 feet—shifted from its position 150 feet deep to over 200 feet.
Coast Guard officials monitoring the situation were fearful that it would continue to descend; if it reached 300 feet or more, they would be unable to remove it. Fortunately, over the ensuing four weeks, it mostly stayed put. And there was little sign of diesel fuel in the water.
In the meantime, a special team comprised of four vessels equipped with oikomi pipes practiced in nearby waters to prepare for emergency efforts to keep whales away from the wreck by deploying the acoustic deterrents in the hopes of driving them into a path away from any toxic releases. The drills were organized and overseen by the Coast Guard, but included the participation of whales scientists Brad Hanson of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and Dr. Deborah Giles of Wild Orca and the University of Washington.
Hanson deployed hydrophones to monitor the sound levels to ensure both their effectiveness and to ensure they weren’t too loud, and came away satisfied with the results. “Participants were happy with the drill and are prepared to deploy the oikomi pipes if necessary,” the Coast Guard reported.
Over the ensuing weeks, killer whales were only rarely seen. However, the Southern Resident J pod showed up briefly in early September, and when they passed the site where the Aleutian Isle went down, scientific observers monitoring the situation observed no diesel sheening in the vicinity, so they chose not to deploy the deterrent measures. The same was true when several smaller pods of transients—including the T-60 brothers—not only approached the vicinity of the platform preparing to raise the boat but circled it and appeared to check it out before moving on.
The large crane that pulled up the Aleutian Isle, seen here listing on its side.
That situation changed when, on Saturday, crews finally began the long-awaited task of pulling the vessel up from the bottom of the sea. As they did so, it became apparent that moving the boat had also jostled free an unknown amount of diesel fuel: a sheen appeared on the surface south of the platform, and the smell was obvious at County Park.
But the salvage team had anticipated, reckoning even before the attempt that, even though divers had successfully sealed up the main tank, there would be pockets of diesel in the ship that would be unleashed when they raised it. What they didn’t know was how much fuel this might be, so the team was prepared with an array of booms already in place in the surrounding waters. So they were quickly in position when the sheens appeared.
However, that was it. The sheens evaporated in the warm sun and flat winds, the smell dissipated, and eventually the Aleutian Isle itself made its first appearance at the surface on the northern side of the crane platform. Crews then set to work pumping it out so that it could be fully resurfaced.
That turned out not to be something they could easily accomplish. The salvage team was unable to access all of the parts of the boat that needed draining, so its remaining weight was too great to pull it fully out of the water. Instead, it remained half-submerged on its side, tethered to the platform by the cables that had pulled it from the depths, along with some fresh stabilizing lines. The complications forced the salvage team to rethink their plans, which entailed lifting the vessel up onto a waiting barge right there in Haro Strait.
“Raising the vessel to the surface is certainly a success, but the complexity of this operation continues to challenge our team,” said U.S. Coast Guard Cmdr. Kira Moody, incident command. “Lifting the boat was a critical first step to minimize the ongoing pollution risk. The next step will likely involve relocating the crane barge to a more sheltered location where we can fully secure the boat with far less risk to our divers and crew and better protect the environment from any lingering pollution risk.”
A couple of days later, crews hauled the entire platform away from its spot near Open Bay to the more protected and shallower waters of nearby Mitchell Bay. Once there, they were able to access the rest of the vessel, get it drained, and finally loaded onto a barge and remove on Sept. 21, 46 days after the Aleutian Isle sank.
But the questions the incident raised—especially those regarding the ability of authorities to respond quickly to an unfolding disaster like this—were only beginning to be asked.
Next: Tar Sands and Killer Whales
FRIDAY HARBOR, Washington—As a pair of transient male orcas cruised northward up the western side of San Juan Island on Sunday, it became apparent that they were headed straight toward the large platform with a crane that had just the day before pulled up a large fishing boat, the Aleutian Isle, which had gone down into 200 feet of water a month before, spilling diesel into the surrounding waters. So a couple of boats got in their path.
The boats were part of a special Coast Guard response team that had been drilling in the vicinity in the weeks after the spill, equipped with oikomi pipes, underwater bells that set up a noise to repel cetaceans like the two male transients. And their efforts Sunday seemed to work, but perhaps not quite as intended: Instead of going farther out into Haro Strait, the mammal-eating Bigg’s orcas instead diverted their path in closer to shore passing inside of Low Island just off County Park, frightening the row of harbor seals who had secured themselves on the rocky haulout.
T-60E, a mammal-eating ‘transient’ orca, comes in much closer to Low Island than the seals lying along it would have liked.
But the tactic still had more or less the desired effect: When the two males (identified by experts as “the T-60 brothers,” T-60D and T-60E) continued northward past the platform, they remained close to the shore and then traveled on without coming close to where the Aleutian Isle wreck—still loaded with a sealed-up tankful of diesel—lay suspended on its side. Problem averted—for now.
But the month-long drama around the Aleutian Isle sinking has been a powerful wakeup call for the federal, state, and international authorities charged with protecting the fragile ecosystem of the Salish Sea from a man-made disaster like an oil spill, especially after their initial response was slow and muddled. For the scientists who monitor the health of those waters—which includes the endangered Southern Resident orca population—the incident was an alarming demonstration of a reality they long feared: No one is prepared for any kind of a major spill—the likelihood of which keeps increasing—in the Salish Sea.
The scene on the western side of San Juan Island, which looks across Haro Strait’s shared waters to British Columbia’s Vancouver Island, has been fraught since Aug. 13, when the 49-foot purse seiner Aleutian Isle went down in waters just north of the island’s County Park. Its five crew members were all rescued, but its tank with 2,600 gallons of diesel in it went down with the ship. An undetermined amount of the diesel promptly created a two-mile sheen in the Strait within a couple of hours.
As bad fortune would have it, the Southern Resident J pod had been visiting the southern end of San Juan Island that morning, and began making their way north toward the diesel spill later in the afternoon. However, they only made it as far north as Lime Kiln Lighthouse—about two miles south of the spill—before abruptly turning left and heading out westward toward Victoria and Vancouver Island, the western side of which they spent the next several weeks occupying. Everyone watching breathed a sigh of relief.
“We were all nervous they were going to do what they usually do, which would’ve taken them straight into the diesel,” Seattle-based oceanographer Scott Veirs told KUOW.
Veirs said that when the Aleutian Isle sank, it was near a slack tide, a period when the areas often-fearsome currents subside to a slow crawl. Afterward, the currents turned north, pushing the spill in the direction opposite of the orcas.
“That’s incredibly lucky,” Veirs said. “If the tides had been reversed, the whales would probably have swum right into the emerging slick.”
Fortunately, the diesel that had been initially released quickly evaporated over the next several sunny days, and whatever was in the tank mostly stayed put. However, the Aleutian Isle did not: Over those same days, the wreck—perched on a steep underwater canyon slope that descended to 700 feet—shifted from its position 150 feet deep to over 200 feet.
Coast Guard officials monitoring the situation were fearful that it would continue to descend; if it reached 300 feet or more, they would be unable to remove it. Fortunately, over the ensuing four weeks, it mostly stayed put. And there was little sign of diesel fuel in the water.
In the meantime, a special team comprised of four vessels equipped with oikomi pipes practiced in nearby waters to prepare for emergency efforts to keep whales away from the wreck by deploying the acoustic deterrents in the hopes of driving them into a path away from any toxic releases. The drills were organized and overseen by the Coast Guard, but included the participation of whales scientists Brad Hanson of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and Dr. Deborah Giles of Wild Orca and the University of Washington.
Hanson deployed hydrophones to monitor the sound levels to ensure both their effectiveness and to ensure they weren’t too loud, and came away satisfied with the results. “Participants were happy with the drill and are prepared to deploy the oikomi pipes if necessary,” the Coast Guard reported.
Over the ensuing weeks, killer whales were only rarely seen. However, the Southern Resident J pod showed up briefly in early September, and when they passed the site where the Aleutian Isle went down, scientific observers monitoring the situation observed no diesel sheening in the vicinity, so they chose not to deploy the deterrent measures. The same was true when several smaller pods of transients—including the T-60 brothers—not only approached the vicinity of the platform preparing to raise the boat but circled it and appeared to check it out before moving on.
The large crane that pulled up the Aleutian Isle, seen here listing on its side.
That situation changed when, on Saturday, crews finally began the long-awaited task of pulling the vessel up from the bottom of the sea. As they did so, it became apparent that moving the boat had also jostled free an unknown amount of diesel fuel: a sheen appeared on the surface south of the platform, and the smell was obvious at County Park.
But the salvage team had anticipated, reckoning even before the attempt that, even though divers had successfully sealed up the main tank, there would be pockets of diesel in the ship that would be unleashed when they raised it. What they didn’t know was how much fuel this might be, so the team was prepared with an array of booms already in place in the surrounding waters. So they were quickly in position when the sheens appeared.
However, that was it. The sheens evaporated in the warm sun and flat winds, the smell dissipated, and eventually the Aleutian Isle itself made its first appearance at the surface on the northern side of the crane platform. Crews then set to work pumping it out so that it could be fully resurfaced.
That turned out not to be something they could easily accomplish. The salvage team was unable to access all of the parts of the boat that needed draining, so its remaining weight was too great to pull it fully out of the water. Instead, it remained half-submerged on its side, tethered to the platform by the cables that had pulled it from the depths, along with some fresh stabilizing lines. The complications forced the salvage team to rethink their plans, which entailed lifting the vessel up onto a waiting barge right there in Haro Strait.
“Raising the vessel to the surface is certainly a success, but the complexity of this operation continues to challenge our team,” said U.S. Coast Guard Cmdr. Kira Moody, incident command. “Lifting the boat was a critical first step to minimize the ongoing pollution risk. The next step will likely involve relocating the crane barge to a more sheltered location where we can fully secure the boat with far less risk to our divers and crew and better protect the environment from any lingering pollution risk.”
A couple of days later, crews hauled the entire platform away from its spot near Open Bay to the more protected and shallower waters of nearby Mitchell Bay. Once there, they were able to access the rest of the vessel, get it drained, and finally loaded onto a barge and remove on Sept. 21, 46 days after the Aleutian Isle sank.
But the questions the incident raised—especially those regarding the ability of authorities to respond quickly to an unfolding disaster like this—were only beginning to be asked.
Next: Tar Sands and Killer Whales