Yap residents want permanent solution
to fuel leak from sunken WWII tanker
By Donovan Brooks, Guam
bureau chief
Residents of Yap in the Federated States of Micronesia want the Navy
to quickly follow up its temporary solution to an oil-leaking World War II-era sunken Navy
tanker.
Local Yap officials notified the Navy of the leak earlier this month
after miles-long oil slicks were spotted in the Ulithi Atoll lagoon, and oil and tar balls
began to wash up on the atoll’s beaches.
About 700 people live on the 50-some islands that make up the
atoll.The USS Mississinewa, sunk by a Japanese submarine in 1944 while anchored inside the
lagoon, recently shifted position on the sea floor about 120 feet below the surface.
The shift caused oil to begin leaking and rise to the surface, said
Jesse Raglmar-Subolmar, Yap disaster response coordinator.
A dive team — contracted by the Navy — used concrete to
plug a 4-inch pipe identified as a source of the leak, said Lt. Desarae Atnip, a
spokeswoman for Coast Guard’s 14th District.
The divers are completing an assessment of the 453-foot ship’s
hull and checking for other leaks, said Lt. Monica Richardson, a Navy spokeswoman.
The Navy and other federal agencies, including the Department of
Interior, is expected to determine what to do about the sunken ship and its contents,
Richardson said.
The Yap government wants the Navy to do more.
“The effort must not be limited to patching the crack and
cleaning up what has been leaked into the lagoon,” Gov. Vincent Figir said in a news
release Monday, “because it is a time bomb waiting to explode and could have
catastrophic consequences for our people.”
“When that happens, the lagoon and reefs will become history and
the people who depend entirely on them for their livelihood will suffer a level of
suffering comparable to Hiroshima. That is our fear.”
Estimates initially said as much as 1,000 gallons of oil were leaking
daily from the tanker.
But a Coast Guard assessment team said about 360 gallons of oil per
day had been coming from one of the ship’s internal tanks, Atnip said.
The ship was built to carry 3.7 million gallons of “Navy special
fuel oil,” but it’s unclear how much remains, she said.
The assessment team said environmental damage was minimal, and no
beach cleanup was necessary at this time, but a shift in prevailing winds could force a
change in that recommendation.
The Coast Guard might coordinate a cleanup, but federal officials
must first determine who will pay the costs, Atnip said.
Yap environmental officials have declared the lagoon off limits for
subsistence fishing, Figir said.
“For as long as the oil remains on the sunken ship and leaking
into the surrounding lagoon environment, the threat and eminent danger to the health,
safety and welfare of the people is present and must be addressed and eliminated
quickly,” Figir said.
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