Newsroom Blog
WANT to spill some oil in America? Only do so if your ship is in the right state.
Nothing too drastic appears to have happened in the immediate aftermath of the Chemical Supplier’s collision last Friday in the Houston Ship Channel, other than insurer Gard and operator OMCI Shipmanagement quietly paying for the clean-up of the 10,500 gallons spilt.
Contrast this with November 2007, when the Cosco Busan spilled 53,000 gallons of fuel oil in San Francisco Bay. All hell broke loose as a sledgehammer of criminal, political and environmental scrutiny flattened the ship’s operator and crew.
The Houston accident remains under investigation, and our hypothesis might yet be upended. Besides, we ourselves make one argument to torpedo our case: San Francisco has migratory birds; Houston does not.
Nonetheless, San Francisco has Barbara Boxer and erudite environmentalists; Houston has inhabitants who by dint of the state’s dependency on the oil trade have an inkling of what ships do for their economy.
San Francisco has a mayor who goes ballistic when he is not the first to be informed of an oil spill; Houston merely has a competent corps of federal and local first responders. San Francisco is a city by the bay; Houston is a maritime town that happens to have a port.
California is proud to be a “banana” republic (build absolutely nothing anywhere near anything) when it comes to liquefied natural gas terminals; Texas and Louisiana have occasionally gone out of their way to court LNG sitings.
From the pecuniary perspective, a shipowner may consider the following. The Cosco Busan circus, still playing in the courthouse, has featured negative caricatures of seafarers; jail for the American pilot; and a $10m fine for the operator with a criminal trial yet to be staged. The Houston bill is yet to be presented.
Nonetheless, what a difference a state makes.
Comments (1)
Comment by
Robert Blakeney
- Friday 2 October 2009
WITH an 8% unemployment rate compared to a 12% rate for California, Texas is weathering the economic storm better than most. Embracing industries of all kinds is part of the "can do" business culture of my home state. And perhaps it's a Southern thing, but when accidents happen, we tend to jump in to help clean them up rather than start calling in the lawyers. Unless, of course, they can work a shovel.
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