Marée noire du Cosco Busan

La marée noire du Cosco Busan s’est produite le 8 novembre 2007 à 8 h 30 UTC entre San Francisco et Oakland, en Californie, où 53 560 gal US (202 780 L) de fioul lourd IFO-380, parfois appelé « carburant de soute », ont été déversés dans la baie de San Francisco. Cet incident s’est produit après que le porte-conteneurs Cosco Busan, exploité par Fleet Management Ltd., ait heurté la tour Delta du pont San Francisco-Oakland Bay dans un épais brouillard. Les enquêteurs ont découvert que le pilote John Cota était en état d’ébriété à cause de l’utilisation de produits pharmaceutiques sur ordonnance pendant le pilotage du porte-conteneurs, ce qui l’empêchait d’utiliser correctement les cartes radar et de navigation électronique embarquées. Cela s’est produit malgré le fait que le Service de Trafic Maritime de la Garde côtière des États-Unis a averti Cota que le navire se dirigeait vers la pont. Cota a été condamné à 10 mois de prison fédérale pour son rôle dans l’incident. Le Gouverneur de Californie Arnold Schwarzenegger a déclaré un état d'urgence après avoir rencontré des responsables fédéraux, étatiques et locaux chargés de superviser le nettoyage. La proclamation a mis à disposition du personnel de l’État, du financement et de l'équipement supplémentaires pour évaluer et réparer les dommages environnementaux.

1. Causes

Le National Transportation Safety Board a déterminé ce qui semble être les causes probables de l'accident :

la performance cognitive dégradée du pilote à cause de son utilisation de médicaments sur ordonnance, malgré son test de drogue négatif après accident, l'absence d'un échange complet entre le capitaine et le pilote avant le départ et le manque de communication efficace entre le pilote John Cota et le capitaine Mao Cai Sun pendant le voyage, et La supervision inefficace du capitaine sur le pilotage de Cota et la progression du navire.

1. Économie

Plusieurs pêcheries dans la région de la baie peuvent avoir été touchées par la marée noire et les saisons de pêche ont été retardées de plusieurs semaines. Le 30 novembre, les biologistes de l’État ont testé plus de 1100 échantillons de poissons, de moules et de crabes dormeurs dans la baie de San Francisco et les eaux côtières à l'extérieur de la Porte Dorée. Les tests ont révélé des concentrations dangereuses de contaminants dans les moules de Rodeo Beach et de la jetée de Berkeley. Les dommages totaux ont été estimés à 2,1 millions de dollars pour le navire, à 1,5 million de dollars pour l'aile du pont et à plus de 70 millions de dollars pour le nettoyage des déversements de pétrole.

1. Conséquences sur l'environnement

La marée noire a eu un impact important sur l'environnement. Elle a également directement affecté des milliers d'oiseaux. À fin novembre, un article mentionne près de 1 400 oiseaux morts, de 27 espèces, et plus de 1 000 individus mazoutés amenés à des centres de soins.

1. Références

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Cosco Busan oil spill

The Cosco Busan oil spill occurred at 08:30 UTC-8 on 7 November 2007 between San Francisco and Oakland, California, in which 53,569 US gal (202,780 L) of IFO-380 heavy fuel oil, sometimes referred to as "bunker fuel", spilled into San Francisco Bay after the container ship Cosco Busan, operated by Fleet Management Limited struck Delta Tower of the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge in thick fog. Investigators found that maritime pilot John Cota was impaired because of his use of prescription pharmaceuticals while piloting the container vessel, which rendered him unable to use the onboard radar and electronic navigation charts correctly. This occurred despite the fact that the Vessel Traffic Service of the United States Coast Guard warned Cota that the vessel was headed for the bridge. Cota was sentenced to 10 months in federal prison for his role in the incident. California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency after meeting federal, state and local officials overseeing the cleanup. The proclamation made additional state personnel, funding and equipment available to assess and clean up the environmental damage.

Landmark

The Bay Lights

The Bay Lights was a site-specific monumental light sculpture and generative art installation on the western span of the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge, designed to commemorate the 75th anniversary of its opening. The installation by light artist Leo Villareal included 25,000 individual white LEDs along 1.8 miles (2.9 km) of the cables on the north side of the suspension span of the bridge between Yerba Buena Island and San Francisco. The installation was controlled via a computer and displayed changing patterns that were not meant to repeat. The opening ceremony was held on March 5, 2013. Initially intended as a temporary installation, which ended on March 5, 2015, the project was re-installed as a longstanding feature of the Bay Bridge with permanent fixtures that were re-lit on January 30, 2016. After an extended run, the lights were turned off on March 5, 2023. An $11M fundraising effort is underway to return the lights in March 2025.

Art Landmark

San Francisco Bay Area

The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a region of California surrounding and including San Francisco Bay, and anchored by the cities of Oakland, San Francisco, and San Jose. The Association of Bay Area Governments defines the Bay Area as including the nine counties that border the estuaries of San Francisco Bay, San Pablo Bay, and Suisun Bay: Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano, Sonoma, and San Francisco. Other definitions may be either smaller or larger, and may include neighboring counties which are not officially part of the San Francisco Bay Area, such as the Central Coast counties of Santa Cruz, San Benito, and Monterey, or the Central Valley counties of San Joaquin, Merced, and Stanislaus. The Bay Area is known for its natural beauty, prominent universities, technology companies, and affluence. The Bay Area contains many cities, towns, airports, and associated regional, state, and national parks, connected by a complex multimodal transportation network. The earliest archaeological evidence of human settlements in the Bay Area dates back to 8000–10,000 BC. The oral tradition of the Ohlone and Miwok people suggests they have been living in the Bay Area for several hundreds if not thousands of years. The Spanish empire claimed the area beginning in the early period of Spanish colonization of the Americas. The earliest Spanish exploration of the Bay Area took place in 1769. The Mexican government controlled the area from 1821 until the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Also in 1848, James W. Marshall discovered gold in nearby mountains, resulting in explosive immigration to the area and the precipitous decline of the Native population. The California gold rush brought rapid growth to San Francisco. California was admitted as the 31st state in 1850. A major earthquake and fire leveled much of San Francisco in 1906. During World War II, the Bay Area played a major role in America's war effort in the Asiatic-Pacific Theater, with the San Francisco Port of Embarkation, of which Fort Mason was one of 14 installations and location of the headquarters, acting as a primary embarkation point for American forces. Since then, the Bay Area has experienced numerous political, cultural, and artistic movements, developing unique local genres in music and art and establishing itself as a hotbed of progressive politics. The postwar Bay Area saw large growth in the financial and technology industries, creating an economy with a gross domestic product of over $700 billion. In 2018 it was home to the third-highest concentration of Fortune 500 companies in the United States. The Bay Area is home to approximately 7.52 million people. The larger federal classification, the combined statistical area of the region which includes thirteen counties, is the second-largest in California—after the Greater Los Angeles area—and the fifth-largest in the United States, with over nine million people. The Bay Area's population is ethnically diverse: roughly three-fifths of the region's residents are Hispanic/Latino, Asian, African/Black, or Pacific Islander, all of whom have a significant presence throughout the region. Most of the remaining two-fifths of the population is non-Hispanic White American. The most populous cities of the Bay Area are Oakland, San Francisco, and San Jose, the latter of which had a population of 969,655 in 2023, making San Jose the area's largest city and the 13th-most populous in the United States. The San Francisco Bay Area's population has the third-oldest median age, following two Florida metros; and it is the fastest-aging of any metropolitan area in the U.S., described as a demographic "doom loop". Despite its urban character, San Francisco Bay is one of California's most ecologically sensitive habitats, providing important ecosystem services such as filtering the pollutants and sediments from rivers and supporting a number of endangered species. In addition, the Bay Area is known for its stands of coast redwoods, many of which are protected in state and county parks. The region is additionally known for the complexity of its landforms, the result of millions of years of tectonic plate movements. Because the Bay Area is crossed by six major earthquake faults, the region is particularly exposed to hazards presented by large earthquakes. The climate is temperate and conducive to outdoor recreational and athletic activities such as hiking, running, and cycling. The Bay Area is host to teams in each of the five largest North American men's professional sports leagues and is a cultural center for music, theater, and the arts. It is also host to numerous higher education institutions, including research universities such as the University of California, Berkeley, and Stanford University, the latter known for helping to create the high tech center called Silicon Valley. Home to 101 municipalities and 9 counties, governance in the Bay Area involves numerous local and regional jurisdictions, often with broad and overlapping responsibilities.

Neighbourhood Park

Point of Infinity

Point of Infinity is a 69-foot-tall stainless steel sculpture by Japanese artist Hiroshi Sugimoto, installed on a Yerba Buena Island hilltop in San Francisco, California. The artwork also acts as a sundial. Installed in 2023, it is the first permanent sculpture commissioned for the Treasure Island Arts Program, and the artist's first major installation in the United States.

Art Landmark

Yerba Buena Tunnel

The Yerba Buena Tunnel, also known as the Yerba Buena Island Tunnel, is a highway tunnel in San Francisco, California. It is the part of San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge complex that crosses Yerba Buena Island. The Yerba Buena Tunnel carries ten lanes of Interstate 80 (I-80) on two decks, connecting the two component spans of the Bay Bridge, the western suspension span and the eastern self-anchored suspension span. At the opening of the Bay Bridge in 1936, it was the world's largest-bore tunnel.

Bridge Landmark