Local fishermen had little role in oil spill cleanup

Coastside fishermen may have been trained as certified oil-spill responders, but they had little opportunity to participate in the Cosco Busan oil spill cleanup, reports the County Times.

Eventually, the Port of San Francisco hired 20 San Francisco-based fishing vessels to assist the cleanup and paid them $3,000 per day for four days.

Ironically, MSRC, the private company that supplied most of the manpower, vessels, and oil-cleanup equipment in the oil spill, was also the company that provided oil-spill cleanup training to up to half the fleet of commercial fishermen along the Pacific Coast in the 1990s.

The annual training sessions ceased abruptly in 1999 without explanation, according to Zeke Grader, executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations.

The company conducting the cleanup is funded by the oil industry. Julia Scott has an extensive article on what happened, what didn’t, and why.