End-of-Decade Spill Summary

The end of the decade is marked by lists of all sorts. During the past decade, NOAA's Office of Response and Restoration (OR&R;) has responded to over 1,100 incidents, including oil spills, ship groundings, chemical releases, and plane crashes. Here are some of the memorable response efforts in the past decade.

• April 7, 2000: An underground pipeline that supplies oil to the Potomac Electric Power Company (PEPCO) Chalk Point generating station in Aquasco, MD, ruptures and spills approximately 140,000 gallons of fuel oil into Swanson Creek [leaves OR&R; site], a small tributary of the Patuxent River.
  
• February 9, 2001: The United States Navy submarine USS Greeneville collided with the Japanese fisheries training ship Ehime Maru [leaves OR&R; site] off the south coast of Oahu, HI. The Ehime Maru sank, releasing at least 21,000 gallons of diesel fuel oil.
  
• May 25, 2002: Removal efforts begin for the SS Jacob Luckenbach [leaves OR&R; site]. The vessel, which sank off San Francisco, CA in 1953, was loaded with 457,000 gallons of bunker fuel.
  
• April 27, 2003: The Tank Barge Bouchard No. 120 [leaves OR&R; site] runs aground near the entrance of Buzzards Bay, MA, releasing more than 98,000 gallons of No. 6 fuel oil into the bay.
  
• December 10, 2004: The freighter M/V Selendang Ayu [leaves OR&R; site] loses power and runs aground on Unalaska Island, AK then breaks in two, releasing over 337,000 gallons of fuel oil.
  
• August-September, 2005: More than 8 million gallons of oil are spilled during Hurricane Katrina (Mississippi/Alabama and Louisiana) [both links leave OR&R; site] from various sources, including pipelines, storage tanks, and industrial plants.
  
• June 19, 2006: Approximately 3 million gallons of waste oil is released from the CITGO Refinery [leaves OR&R; site] on the Calcasieu River, LA during a violent rain storm.
  
• November 7, 2007: The container ship M/V Cosco Busan [leaves OR&R; site] hits the Bay Bridge in San Francisco Bay, CA, spilling approximately 50,000 gallons of heavy fuel oil.
  
• July 23, 2008: The T/V Tintomara collides with the tug/barge (M/V Mel Oliver and DM932 [leaves OR&R; site]) near downtown New Orleans, LA, spilling more than 270,000 gallons of No. 6 fuel oil.
  
• September 25, 2009: The 458-foot freighter M/V Chemical Supplier [leaves OR&R; site] collides with a barge on the Houston Ship Channel, TX, spilling 25,000 gallons of heavy fuel oil and closing the waterway to ship traffic.

More Information More information on these and other events can be found at our IncidentNews Web site.

IncidentNews [leaves OR&R; site]