NEAH BAY — A milestone was reached Tuesday in the careers of several oil spill emergency response workers.
They gathered in Neah Bay for a celebration marking the completion of recovery efforts after the 1991 Tenyo Maru oil spill off the coast of Cape Flattery.
The spill, caused by a collision between the Chinese freighter Tuo Hai and Japanese fishing vessel Tenyo Maru, dumped more than 450,000 gallons of diesel and fuel oil into the water.
The fuel devastated beaches and killed more than 4,000 sea birds.
Now, 15 years later, a full-scale plan for marine life restoration along the Cape Flattery coastline is in place.
“You are the first significant success story in that effort,” Craig O’Connor of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association told the trustee committee responsible for the plan at Tuesday’s ceremony.
The committee was made up of representatives from the federal, state and Makah tribal governments.
“NOAA changed the focus of their [oil spill] regulations to be exactly what you’ve done,” O’Connor said.
‘Bureaucratic spill’
O’Connor, who was on the scene of Tenyo Maru within hours of the accident, has done oil spill response work for 17 years since the tanker Exxon Valdez spill off the Alaskan coast.
“Exxon Valdez was a bureaucratic spill as much as it was an oil spill,” O’Connor said.
“I can tell you that we did not do a very good job,” as there is still no resolution to Exxon Valdez, O’Connor said.
Dale Jensen, spills program manager for the state Department of Ecology, said the partnership of the three governments was what made the Tenyo Maru recovery and restoration efforts successful.
“Thinking back on that day . . . it really was about partnerships, about lessons learned,” Jensen said.
The three-government partnership worked together in reaching a $9 million joint settlement from the companies responsible for the spill.
That settlement went on to pay for $3.8 million in recovery and response efforts, and $5.2 million for restoration and preservation of affected marine resources.
Coastal seabird habitat
Of the $5.2 million for restoration, $3.5 million went toward preservation of 555 acres of coastal forest for seabird habitats at Anderson Point and Waatch Valley in Neah Bay.
The Makah will remain stewards of the land, but it will be set aside for a 200-year conservation easement, meaning only natural recreation and cultural activities can take place on it, said Curt Hart, spokesman for the state Department of Ecology.