Ships unable to report oil spills

SACRAMENTO, March 23 (UPI) -- Many ships entering California ports may not be able to comply with a state law requiring they have the capability of reporting oil spills within 30 minutes.

Twenty-one of 164 ships subjected to spot state inspection in a three-year period could not place four notification phone calls, The Sacramento Bee reported Sunday.

The notification procedure is meant to hasten responses to accidents such as when the Cosco Busan container ship recently rammed the Bay Bridge, spilling 53,000 gallons of fuel oil into San Francisco Bay. Notification was found to be tardy in that case, the newspaper said.

State investigators found that often a ship's crew either failed to locate the phone numbers or didn't understand the mandate, the newspaper reported.

An estimated 7,400 ships worldwide are required to follow the California law, according to industry observers.

"This is about making a phone call. Nobody should be failing that basic test," said Linda Sheehan, executive director of the California Coastkeeper Alliance. "This really calls into question whether or not they can respond in a timely manner to the spill itself."