Date of incident: November 26, 2004.
Location: Delaware River (near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania).
Trustees:
Case status: Injury assessment and restoration planning underway.
Overview: On 26 November 2004, the M/T ATHOS I (Athos) struck a large,
submerged anchor while preparing to dock at a refinery in Paulsboro, New
Jersey. The anchor punctured the vessel’s bottom, resulting in the discharge of
nearly 265,000 gallons of crude oil into the Delaware River and nearby
tributaries.
See Map of the approximate location of the Athos oil spill incident on
the Delaware River.
Federal, state, and local agencies responded to the incident to supervise and
assist in clean-up and begin assessing the impact of the spill on natural
resources. The U.S. Coast Guard (USCG), States of New Jersey and Delaware, and
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania created a Unified Command for directing clean-up
efforts. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service, and natural resource agencies within Delaware, New Jersey,
and Pennsylvania (collectively referred to as the natural resource trustees)
began collecting “preassessment” data to determine whether natural resource
damage assessment (NRDA) actions under the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 (OPA) (33
U.S.C. §2706(b)) were justified and make preliminary determinations regarding
the type of injury assessment and restoration actions that might be pursued.
See Preassessment Data Report,
Appendix a, b, and c;
Appendix d and e; Appendix
f and g; Appendix
h and i.
The Athos is a 750-foot, single bottom, double-sided tanker that was built in 1983. At the time of the incident, the
vessel was registered under the flag of Cyprus, owned by Frescati Shipping
Company, Ltd., and operated by Tsakos Shipping & Trading, S.A.
The Athos departed Venezuela for the Citgo Asphalt Refinery in Paulsboro, New
Jersey on 20 November 2004, carrying approximately 13 million gallons of crude
oil. At approximately 9:30 pm on 26 November 2004, tug operators assisting the
Athos with docking at the refinery notified the USCG that the tanker was
leaking oil. The vessel had struck several submerged objects while maneuvering
through Anchorage #9 to its berth. Within minutes, the ship lost power and
listed approximately eight degrees to the vessel’s port side.
Surveys of the river bottom following the incident found several submerged
objects in the area, including an 18,000 pound anchor, large concrete block,
and pump casing. The USCG’s investigation of the incident determined that the
anchor punctured the vessel’s number seven center cargo and port ballast tanks.
The bulkhead between the cargo and ballast tanks was also damaged, allowing the
transported product to migrate into the ballast tank and then into the river.
The Unified Command initially estimated that 30,000 gallons of oil spilled into the River. This estimate was revised to
473,500 gallons based on “worst-case” assumptions once the vessel was
stabilized several days after the incident. Following a more comprehensive
analysis after lightering of the remaining oil, the USCG provided a final
estimate of 264,335 gallons that spilled into the Delaware River.
At the time of the incident, the tide was incoming, and the current was
approximately one and a half to two knots. Within the first few hours, thick
oil covered the River and moved upriver with the flood tide to about the Walt
Whitman Bridge, approximately six miles north. Over the following weeks and
months, oil from the ruptured tanker spread downriver, exposing natural
resources over 115 river miles of the Delaware River (280 miles of shoreline),
as well as its tributaries, from the Tacony-Palmyra Bridge to south of the
Smyrna River in Delaware. Key resources exposed to the spilled oil include
shorelines (marshes, sandy beaches, tidal flats, etc.), aquatic organisms
(fish, shellfish, etc.), birds and other wildlife that use the Delaware River
and Bay, and recreational areas. The incident also forced the USCG to close the
Delaware River to commercial traffic for over a week, and submerged oil
resulted in the contamination of water intakes and the closure of the Salem
Nuclear Power Plant.
Under OPA, state and federal agencies are designated as natural resource trustees, responsible for assessing natural
resource losses and restoring those losses to baseline conditions, that is, the
conditions that would have existed had the incident not occurred. Regulations
promulgated under OPA provide a framework for conducting a NRDA, including
preassessment, restoration planning, and restoration implementation (15 C.F.R.
Part 990). Funds to assess losses and to plan and implement appropriate
restoration are provided by either the responsible party (RP) or, if an RP does
not exist or exceeds its limit of liability, the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund
established under OPA.
