35 CHRONIC OILING AND SEABIRD MORTALITY FROM THE SUNKEN VESSEL S.S. JACOB LUCKENBACH IN CENTRAL CALIFORNIA

• Main Authors: Steve Hampton, R. Glenn Ford, Harry R. Carter, Christine Abraham, Diana Humple
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 2003
• Subjects: Key words; oil; tar balls; California; mortality; restoration; Common Murre Uria aalge; Gulf of the Farallones; S.S. Jacob Luckenbach; Common Murre; Uria aalge; uria
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.390.8215; http://www.prbo.org/cms/docs/oilspill/Hampton2003.pdf

In 2002, the source of a mystery oil spill that killed large numbers of seabirds, especially Common Murres Uria aalge, in the Gulf of the Farallones, central California, was tracked to the vessel S.S. Jacob Luckenbach which sank after a collision in 1954. Matches of many oil samples have established that oil leaking from this vessel is responsible for the 2001-2002 and many earlier mystery oiling events in the 1990s, especially the 1997-1998 Point Reyes Tarball Incidents. This vessel has been a major source of chronic oil pollution in central California, although illegal offshore dumping of tank washing and bilge dumping also is implicated as a significant source of chronic oiling by non-matches of several oil samples. Recent efforts to investigate the source of oil, remove oil from the sunken vessel, and examine impacts to seabirds are summarized. A natural resource damage claim is being filed and seabird restoration efforts are envisioned.