December 3, 1970
Page 39805
OIL SLUDGE DUMPING BY THE NAVY
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, I am astonished by the news that the Navy is dumping oil sludge into the Atlantic Ocean off the north coast of Florida.
According to dispatches, the sludge has formed an oil slick 40 miles long and 19 miles wide at a point fewer than 25 miles from the Atlantic beaches.
The slick endangers at least 50 miles of shoreline between south Georgia and St. Augustine. An official of the Florida Marine Patrol calls it the biggest oil spill he has ever seen.
The Navy does not deny it. Its spokesman says the Mayport Naval Station at the mouth of the St. Johns River has been using this procedure for the past 2 years.
He claims the Navy is judicious with its dumping. The barges go out to sea only twice every 3 months, and they do not dump until they are more than 50 miles from land.
Mr. President, I am appalled. The Navy's dumping blatantly violates the Nixon administration's stated policy on ocean dumping. It blatantly violates a Federal law on oil spills enacted just 8 months ago today. It blatantly violates Interior Department regulations published only 2 months ago.
The President's position on the protection of our environment is well known. Only last February, in his environmental message to the Congress, he made it clear:
“The damage done to our environment has not been the work of evil men, nor has it been the inevitable by-product either of advancing technology or of growing population.
It results not so much from choices made, as from choices neglected; not from malign intention, but from failure to take into full account the full consequences of our actions.”
The Federal law on oil spills, Public Law 91-224 – signed on April 3 by the President, is equally clear. It flatly prohibits the discharge of oil in harmful quantities into or upon the navigable waters, the adjoining shorelines, and the contiguous zone.
The Interior Department regulations – issued September 11 – just as clearly define what harmful quantities are. Any spill that violates applicable water quality standards or causes a film or sheen or discoloration of the water is a harmful quantity.
Only yesterday in New Orleans, three major oil companies were fined more than $500,000 by a Federal court for safety violations at offshore wells, the kind of violations that have resulted in oil spills. But the Navy, dumping oil – not spilling oil-into the Atlantic Ocean goes scot-free.
Where does the Navy get its authority to dump oil sludge into the Atlantic, or any other ocean?
The Navy's defense rests upon the most incredible claim of this continuing disaster. The Navy says it is acting under the Oil Pollution Act of 1924.
Mr. President, I read in their entirety two lines from the Water Quality Improvement Act of 1970, signed on April 3, 1970, by President Nixon:
SEC. 108. The Oil Pollution Act, 1924 (43 Stat. 604), as amended (80 Stat. 1246-1252), is hereby repealed.
The authority on which the Navy acted has not been law since 8 months ago, Mr. President.
Mr. President, the Committee on Public Works will hold an emergency hearing on this oil spill tomorrow morning at 10 o'clock. Senator JENNINGS RANDOLPH, chairman of the Committee on Public Works, and Senator JOHN SHERMAN COOPER, ranking minority member, sent
telegrams to the Secretary of Defense, the Acting Secretary of the Interior, and the Chairman of the Council on Environmental Quality.
I ask unanimous consent that copies of the telegrams be included in the RECORD at this point.
There being no objection, the telegrams were ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
Hon. MELVIN R. LAIRD,
Secretary of Defense,
Washington, D.C.
DEAR MR. SECRETARY: We are informed that the responsible officers of the Navy have justified the recent oil dumping off the coast of Florida on the basis of regulations issued under the Oil Pollution Act of 1924 (43 stat. 604). Not only is this recent action, which now imperils the beaches of North Florida, in violation of the President's announced policy against ocean dumping, but it is in direct violation of PL 91-224, Section 108, which repealed the Oil Pollution Act of 1924. In view of the President's policy, PL 91-224, and the growing concern of the American people for safeguarding our environment, this action of the Navy is incredible. There would appear to be no national security issue involved but only gross disregard of the Water Quality Improvement Act of 1970. The officers responsible for this action must be held accountable under the law. We are formulating plans for an emergency hearing by the Subcommittee on Air and Water Pollution. I respectfully request that you hold the Secretary of the Navy available for such a hearing in the next 48 hours.
JOHN SHERMAN COOPER.
JENNINGS RANDOLPH.
Hon. FRED J. RUSSELL,
Interior Building,
Washington, D.C.
DEAR MR. SECRETARY: We are informed that the responsible officers of the Navy have justified the recent oil dumping off the coast of Florida on the basis of regulations issued under the Oil Pollution Act of 1924 (43 stat. 604). Not only is this recent action, which now imperils the beaches of North Florida, in violation of the President's announced policy against ocean dumping, but it is in direct violation of P.L. 91-224. Section 108, which repealed the Oil Pollution Act of 1924. In view of the President's policy, P.L. 91-224, and the growing concern of the American people for safeguarding our environment, this action of the Navy is incredible. There would appear to be no national security issue involved but only gross disregard of the Water Quality Improvement Act of 1970. We are formulating plans for an emergency hearing by the Subcommittee on Air and Water Pollution, within the next 48 hours. Will you please furnish the Committee on Public Works with information regarding whatever guidelines you may have issued to the Navy under the Environmental Policy Act of 1970 or the Federal Water Pollution Control Act, as amended, regarding such ocean dumping.
JOHN SHERMAN COOPER.
JENNINGS RANDOLPH.
Hon. RUSSELL E. TRAIN,
Council on Environmental Quality,
Washington, D.C.
DEAR MR. CHAIRMAN: We are informed that the responsible officers of the Navy have justified the recent oil dumping off the coast of Florida on the basis of regulations issued under the Oil Pollution Act of 1924 (43 stat. 604). Not only is this recent action, which now imperils the beaches of North Florida, in violation of the President's announced policy against ocean dumping, but it is in direct violation of PL 91-224, Section 108, which repealed the Oil Pollution Act of 1924. In view of the President's policy, PL 91-224, and the growing concern of the American people for safeguarding our environment, this action of the Navy is incredible. There would appear to be no national security issue involved but only gross disregard of the Water Quality Improvement Act of 1970. We are formulating plans for an emergency hearing of the Subcommittee on Air and Water Pollution within the next 48 hours. Will you please furnish the Committee on Public Works with information regarding whatever guidelines you may have issued to the Navy under the Environmental Policy Act of 1970 regarding such ocean dumping.
JENNINGS RANDOLPH.
JOHN SHERMAN COOPER.
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, I also ask unanimous consent that copies of the news stories describing this disaster which appeared in this morning's Washington Post and New York Times be included in the RECORD at this point.
There being no objection, the news articles were ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
[From the Washington Post, Dec. 3, 1970]
NAVY DUMPING FORMS OIL SLICK OFF FLORIDA
JACKSONVILLE, Fla.– A massive oil slick covering 760 square miles was located Wednesday in the Atlantic Ocean 23 miles off north Florida. A spokesman for the state said the U.S. Navy deliberately dumped it.
The heavy black fuel oil posed a threat along 50 miles of sandy beaches from near the Georgia line to St. Augustine the spokesman said.
"This is not a spill; this is a dump," said Randolph Hodges, director of the State Natural Resources Department at Tallahassee.
State Marine Patrol officials estimated the slick was 40 miles long and 19 miles wide. The Navy at Jacksonville said it had dumped "a quantity of sludge from two barges into the ocean" Monday night.
The official Navy statement said Mayport Naval Station at the mouth of the St. Johns River "has used this procedure for the past two years, as required by the Oil Pollution Act of 1924. It is done about twice a quarter over 50 miles from land."
Lt. John Seay of the Florida Marine Patrol described it as the biggest oil spill he's ever seen-much bigger than one located Tuesday in the Florida Keys near the underwater Pennekamp State Park. Winds and seas broke that one up.
THREE OIL COMPANIES FINED $500,000 IN VIOLATIONS AT OFFSHORE WELLS
NEW ORLEANS, December 2.– Three major oil companies were fined more than $500,000 in Federal court today after pleading no contest to charges that they had not placed safety valves on some offshore oil wells in the Gulf of Mexico.
The three companies – Humble Oil Company, Union Oil Company and Continental Oil Company – each received the maximum fine of $2,000 for each count in the indictments.
A fourth company, Shell Oil Company, which is currently fighting an offshore oil well fire, pleaded not guilty, and United States District Judge Fred J. Cassiery said that he would set a trial date later.
The action came at an arraignment on indictments brought by the Federal Government in November.
Humble was fined $300,000 on 150 separate counts involving 33 offshore wells; Union $24,000 on 12 counts involving eight wells, and Continental $242,000 on 121 counts involving 24 wells.
Shell is charged with 170 separate offenses involving 40 wells.
No pollution was involved in any of the offenses. The companies were indicted after a grand jury investigation that stemmed from the Chevron Oil Company offshore fire and oil spill last February. Chevron paid $1-million in fines.
COMPANIES COMPLYING
The Government has said that all the companies here now complying with the law and that the offenses listed in the indictments were for past actions.
Since the Chevron spill, which went uncontrolled for a month, the Department of the Interior has doubled the Gulf Coast oil inspection force, and a further expansion is planned. The man who ordered the expansion, Walter J. Hickel, was dismissed last week from his post as Interior Secretary by President Nixon.
Mr. Hickel had also suspended further leasing of offshore oil sites until Dec. 15. The Shell fire, which began yesterday when an oil well blew out on a drilling platform 10 miles from the Louisiana coast, continued to burn today. Shell officials said that they were considering allowing it to burn until they could drill a relief well, a process requiring about three weeks.
Richard Nelson, Shell's offshore division general manager, told a news conference today that the new fire was potentially a greater pollution threat than the Chevron fire. However, he said that the company could meet the threat.
State officials said that initial pollution from the Shell blowout was minor. There are 22 working wells on the Shell drilling platform.
United States Attorney General A. Gallinghouse pointed out that the well involved in the fire was not involved in the indictments for which Shell faces trial.
In the Shell fire, which occurred more than 100 miles from the Chevron fire, two men were killed, one man is missing and several were burned critically.
NEW OIL SLICK THREAT
JACKSONVILLE, FLA., December 2.– The second oil slick threat in two days cropped up along the Florida Coast today – apparently as a result of the dumping of oil by the Navy. Randolph Hodges, State Natural Resources Director, said that the slick, about 52 miles offshore, was being blown along by winds and could threaten tourist beaches from Fernandia Beach south to Daytona Beach – a stretch of 110 miles.
He said that the slick had been located by one of his agency's planes and was 15 to 19 miles wide.
Yesterday, an oil slick – believed caused by a passing Italian ship – was discovered off the Florida Keys, but the winds and seas broke it up before it could cause any extensive damage to the shoreline.
Mr. Hodges said that the new slick, "beginning at the northern end of Nassau Sound 52 miles offshore, extends 40 miles southward to Palm Valley between Jacksonville Beach and St. Augustine."
At the Palm Valley point, he said, the oil mass is only 23 miles offshore.
He said that an investigation had found that two barges left the Mayport Naval Base at noon on Nov. 30, ran a course of 87 degrees 50 miles offshore and returned to Mayport Dec. 1 at 10 in the morning.
"The Navy tells us that regulations require them to dump 50 miles out, but our problem is that it's coming back toward shore," Mr. Hodges said. "With the President's stand against dumping in the ocean, it's peculiar that his military would be dumping any distance off there."