San Juans disaster was narrowly averted
Captain in collision had health, alcohol ills
By ERIC NALDER
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER
It was about as close to a disastrous oil spill as you can get without having one -- and it happened in the San Juan Islands.
On Jan. 19, 2002, a binge drinker who had suffered several mini-strokes veered the escort tug he was driving in front of the bow of an oncoming single-hulled oil tanker carrying 2 million gallons of light fuel oil, according to a federal court ruling.
The collision near Lopez Island rolled the tugboat over like a dog's chew toy.
Amazingly, no one was seriously hurt and the tanker did not spill oil, but the collision between the 612-foot tanker Allegiance, owned by Maritrans Inc. of Tampa, Fla., and the tug Sea King underlines the special dangers tankers sail through in busy Washington shipping lanes.
(Note: The Sea King was misidentified in the original version of this article.)
The tugboat skipper, Donald Nekeferoff, 65, of Tacoma, said in an interview yesterday that he surrendered his Coast Guard tugboat master's license immediately afterward because a doctor told him, "I shouldn't even be driving a car."
U.S. District Judge John Coughenour said in a decision last year the tugboat owner -- seagoing giant Crowley Maritime -- had known for years about Nekeferoff's mini-strokes and drinking. Yet the company allowed him to regularly command escort tugs that accompanied fully loaded oil tankers through the most hazardous waterways of Washington state.
"That's a total outrage," said Naki Stevens of the environmental watchdog group People for Puget Sound, who did not know about the circumstances surrounding the crash even though she is among the most informed ocean environmentalists in the area.
A spokesman for Crowley said the judge had it wrong in many details, and insisted that the company has a strong policy against alcohol on vessels that is strictly enforced. He said Nekeferoff was tested immediately after the crash and he had no sign of drugs or alcohol in his system.
"Crowley had no reason to believe the tug captain was unfit for duty," said Mark Miller of Crowley Maritime Corp., based in Jacksonville, Fla. "At the time of the incident, the tug captain was licensed and had passed a U.S. Coast Guard physical examination." The Coast Guard requires physicals every five years.
Besides owning tugboats, Crowley is the nation's largest independent operator of petroleum barges and tankers.
One reason tankers have such a challenge in Washington waters is the unfortunate placement of the state's four biggest refineries.
To get to Cherry Point, Ferndale and the two Anacortes refineries, tankers must first navigate one of the busiest deep-draft shipping lanes in the world, the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Then depending on which refinery they are visiting, they go through one of the prettiest and trickiest back roads around -- Rosario Strait, Guemes Channel and the Saddlebag Passage at Padilla Bay.
Each features a nerve-racking array of underwater shoals, winds, swift tides and small boat traffic, varying with the season.
"It can be a real mess up there, especially during the tour-boat season. Anything that floats can get in the way," said a Coast Guard vessel traffic controller who watches the waterway on a radar screen.
Other tankers sail south down Puget Sound to a refinery in Tacoma, which has its own hazards, such as container ships with tons of momentum traveling at up to 25 mph.
Nekeferoff and five other crew members on the tug Sea King met the Allegiance that night east of Port Angeles and arranged for a standard escorting maneuver that involves a game of chase.
Because the tanker is faster than the tugs, the Sea King and another Crowley tug, the Chief, got a two- or three-mile running start. The tanker caught up within 45 minutes, around 9:30 p.m., near Davidson Rock, and that's when trouble struck.
With the Sea King off his port bow, the pilot on the bridge of the Allegiance, Joseph Semler, noticed the Sea King moving closer and closer to his bow.
"Don, are you OK?" the pilot asked Nekeferoff, who replied positively.
The tug then veered into the bow of the tanker, or so said the witnesses the judge most believed. Crowley and Nekeferoff insist it was the other way around.
Luckily, the tanker's bow hit the tug, because only a single layer of steel protected the cargo tanks on the side. The heavy ship was traveling nearly 15 nautical miles an hour when it plowed into the stern of the tug, driving it sideways and over. The tug's screw left chew marks in the bow of the ship, but nothing penetrated the cargo tanks.
"I thought I was going to die," said Nekeferoff, who still feels emotional about the experiences. "Water was coming in the wheelhouse."
But there were only minor injuries, and no spill. Crew members found Nekeferoff in a "non-responsive state."
An investigation revealed Crowley had records showing Nekeferoff had a mini-stroke on the job in May 1999, and "two or more" other mini-strokes up to the time of the accident.
He was taken for emergency treatment for low back pain and sharp radiating chest pains in January 2000. He also had been diagnosed with blocked arteries in his neck and had handicapped parking privileges for blocked leg arteries, court records showed.
"Finally, there were repeated references in medical records contained in Crowley's files to Captain Nekeferoff being a chronic alcoholic and being a 'binge' drinker," the judge said.
The P-I asked Nekeferoff in an interview what happened prior to the crash and he said: "I think I had a mini-stroke."
But, he added: "I didn't ram into that ship, it ran over me."
Coughenour rapped the Maritrans tanker for one thing -- failing to sound a warning horn as the vessels converged. He found the tug 75 percent liable and the tanker 25 percent liable for the accident.
Stevens said the case proves the need for a citizens oversight board in Puget Sound, a proposal in a bill sponsored by State Sen. Harriet Spanel, D-Bellingham.
John Devens, who is executive director of a citizens' council in Prince William Sound -- a panel that inspired Spanel -- said their group investigates incidents like the Nekeferoff case and also encourages whistle-blowers to report them.
Dale Jensen, head of the Washington State Department of Ecology's spills program, wasn't aware of the details of the case but said he was aware that the Coast Guard investigated it.
"To me it's just amazing we didn't know," said Spanel. "Somebody didn't take it seriously."
The state House of Representatives will conduct a hearing on Spanel's proposal today at 8 a.m.
Ecology has lobbied successfully to have industry representatives on the proposed board -- there are none on the panel in Prince William Sound -- and Spanel has resisted Ecology's efforts to have the board report to Ecology rather than the governor.
A citizens board would oversee a pretty neighborhood with some hard edges.
Nearly two tankers a day enter the state through the Strait of Juan de Fuca, a straight-shot wind tunnel leading in from the North Pacific Ocean. Half the trips are made by regulars -- about two dozen, owned by oil companies, sail between the Trans-Alaska Pipeline terminal in Valdez, Alaska and the West Coast.
Another 80 tankers come in occasionally, many of them foreign-flagged, and of varying quality. They make up the other half of the trips.
They are joined by thousands of other vessels. Ferries make up about 80 percent of the traffic monitored by the Coast Guard's Vessel Traffic System in Puget Sound, which is one of the best in the world.
Besides VTS, other advantages in Puget Sound are escort tugs that accompany tankers and pilots. The tankers travel nearly all the time within five miles of shore -- drifting-ashore distance.
One of the few safety drawbacks is there are no speed limits, as there are in San Francisco Bay, but there are voluntary speed advisories of 11 knots in Rosario Strait and 6 knots in Guemes Channel.
Another asset in Puget Sound is citizen activism. Back in the 1970s, the public forced the adoption of tug escorts, VTS and a ban against tankers larger than 125,000 deadweight tons.
The latter is now on the block.
A consultant study done for Ecology has said the size restriction could cause larger spills.
That's because companies such as ConocoPhillips and BP are building tankers for this market that are 142,000 and 188,000 deadweight tons.
They are allowed to enter these waters with those ships, loaded light and riding high, thus keeping their weight under 125,000 tons.
The study said tankers sitting high like that in the water would spill more oil if punctured, because oil pours out of a tanker until it sinks to the level where the cargo is in equilibrium with the outside seawater.
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