Crude Awakening

Published May 2, 2004 12:00AM


Outside magazine, September 1997 Crude Awakening Torpedoed 55 years ago off central California, a once-forgotten tanker presents a sticky dilemma By Christopher Weir As a testament to the west coast’s notoriously short memory, the oil tanker Montebello has few challengers. Felled by a Japanese submarine off central California in 1941, the Montebello and its cargo — 3.1 million gallons of crude — vanished from the collective consciousness almost as quickly as it sank. Would that it had disappeared from the floor of the Pacific as well. After languishing at a depth of 900 feet for more than 55 years, sitting among crustaceans and anemones just a mile outside the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, the Montebello was “discovered” late last year. Marine archaeologist Jack Hunter and his colleagues at the Central Coast Maritime Museum Association — poring through archives in an attempt to locate downed World War II-era battleships — read accounts of the tanker’s demise and immediately recognized it as a potential environmental time bomb. A subsequent government-sponsored dive mission found the vessel, largely intact, six miles west of the town of Cambria. Alas, it seems likely that this is precisely where the Montebello will remain, at least for the time being. Though officials at Monterey Bay, the nation’s largest and arguably most ecologically diverse marine sanctuary, are none too thrilled to have enough crude to despoil 300 miles of coastline just beyond its boundaries, jurisdictionally the Montebello is a problem for the Coast Guard. And the military agency’s position is simply to leave well enough alone. “It’s not easy to get that stuff up from 900 feet,” sighs Lieutenant Commander Phil Daniels, who says that the Coast Guard believes the spill danger from attempting to raise the tanker or siphon its contents outweighs that of a potential hull breech. “We have no plans to go down and remove oil.” A stance that, as you might imagine, has Hunter a bit piqued. This month, in a report to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which governs the Monterey Bay sanctuary, Hunter will suggest that the Coast Guard’s refusal to even consider other options is irresponsible, to say the least. “I’m not predicting that there’s going to be an immediate problem with this vessel, but I do see it as something we should be studying very closely,” he explains. “I’ll bet if there were three million gallons of crude oil sitting in the middle of Yosemite, somebody would be dealing with it.” Illustration by Matt Mahurin

Outside magazine, September 1997 Crude Awakening Torpedoed 55 years ago off central California, a once-forgotten tanker presents a sticky dilemma
By Christopher Weir As a testament to the west coast’s notoriously short memory, the oil tanker Montebello has few challengers. Felled by a Japanese submarine off central California in 1941, the Montebello and its cargo — 3.1 million gallons of crude — vanished from the collective consciousness almost as quickly as it sank. Would that it had disappeared from the floor of the Pacific as well. After languishing at a depth of 900 feet for more than 55 years, sitting among crustaceans and anemones just a mile outside the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, the Montebello was “discovered” late last year. Marine archaeologist Jack Hunter and his colleagues at the Central Coast Maritime Museum Association — poring through archives in an attempt to locate downed World War II-era battleships — read accounts of the tanker’s demise and immediately
recognized it as a potential environmental time bomb. A subsequent government-sponsored dive mission found the vessel, largely intact, six miles west of the town of Cambria. Alas, it seems likely that this is precisely where the Montebello will remain, at least for the time being. Though officials at Monterey Bay, the nation’s largest and arguably most ecologically diverse marine sanctuary, are none too thrilled to have enough crude to despoil 300 miles of coastline just beyond its boundaries, jurisdictionally the Montebello is a problem for the
Coast Guard. And the military agency’s position is simply to leave well enough alone. “It’s not easy to get that stuff up from 900 feet,” sighs Lieutenant Commander Phil Daniels, who says that the Coast Guard believes the spill danger from attempting to raise the tanker or siphon its contents outweighs that of a potential hull breech. “We have no plans to go down and remove
oil.” A stance that, as you might imagine, has Hunter a bit piqued. This month, in a report to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which governs the Monterey Bay sanctuary, Hunter will suggest that the Coast Guard’s refusal to even consider other options is irresponsible, to say the least. “I’m not predicting that there’s going to be an immediate problem with this
vessel, but I do see it as something we should be studying very closely,” he explains. “I’ll bet if there were three million gallons of crude oil sitting in the middle of Yosemite, somebody would be dealing with it.” Illustration by Matt Mahurin