Oa Pollution Act of 1924, should be further 

 amended to assert such a power.^ ' 



2. The Massive Oil Spill 



a. General The most notorious of the recent 

 massive oil spills involved the tanker Torrey 

 Canyon}^ The Barracuda Tanker Company of 

 Bermuda, a subsidiary of Union Oil Company of 

 Los Angeles, California, owned the vessel. For tax 

 purposes, the ship was leased by the subsidiary to 

 the parent company and it was registered in 

 Monrovia and flew the Liberian flag. The crew was 

 Greek and she was on charter to the British 

 Petroleum Company. 



On the morning of Saturday, March 18, 1967, 

 she was reported aground on the Seven Stones reef 

 between the Isles of Sicilly and Lands End, 

 England— outside British territorial waters. She had 

 departed Mina Al Ahmadi in the Persian Gulf on 

 February 18, loaded with 119,328 tons of crude 

 oil, shipped by B. P. Trading, Limited, of the 

 United Kingdom, to her destination at Milford 

 Haven, England, by way of the Cape of Good 

 Hope. The grounding was subsequently attributed 

 to the negligence of her master in traversing 

 relatively unfamiliar territory without taking the 

 proper precautions.^ ' As a result of this ground- 

 ing, six tanks were opened, at least in part, to the 

 sea. By Monday, approximately 30,000 tons of 

 crude oil had spilled into the sea and an additional 

 30,000 tons escaped within a week's time, affect- 

 ing 100 miles of Cornish beaches.^** The magni- 

 tude of the impact of these spills can be rec- 



Oil Pollution, A Report to the President, A Special 

 Study by the Secretary of the Interior and the Secretary 

 of Transportation, February 1968. For the Oil Pollution 

 Act of 1924, see 33 U.S.C. §§431 et seg., as amended 

 by Pub. L. 89-753, Title II, 80 Stat. 1252 (1966). 



There have been other instances but the Torrey 

 Canyon disaster wiU be taken to illustrate the problems 

 involved. For other instances of massive oil spills, see 

 Report to the President, supra note 27. 



29 



Report of the Board of Investigation in the Matter 

 of the Standing of the S.S. Torrey Canyon, convened by 

 the Government of Liberia, March 18, 1967. Findings and 

 Conclusions 26-28. 



^"Lessons Arising from the Incident of the TORREY 

 CANYON, Note by the United Kingdom. 



ognized by noting that fifteen tons of crude oil 

 will cover eight square miles of ocean area within a 

 week.^ '■ 



The Torrey Canyon was not abandoned, in the 

 sense of maritime law, for some time, so the 

 British government could not legally take immedi- 

 ate charge of the situation. 



By March 27, the British Government decided 

 that there was no hope of removing the hulk and 

 ordered the bombing of the tanker in an attempt 

 to burn the remaining oil. The effort was un- 

 successful and may have resulted in the release of 

 additional quantities of oil. Efforts were directed 

 at controlling the released fluid with detergents, 

 booms, straw and other materials.^ ^ 



The costs of the disaster are still being counted. 

 100,000 birds and millions of fish were killed. 

 More than 100 miles of Cornish coast were soaked 

 in an oily slime that washed across the channel to 

 ruin French beaches also. Cleanup costs to the 

 United Kingdom were reported to total $8 miUion, 

 not including costs to local governments and 

 private agencies.^ ^ France claimed damages of 

 $7.8miUion.^'' 



A similar disaster, if it were to pollute the 

 coasts of the United States, would entail staggering 

 costs. It is estimated that a major spill on the 

 beaches of Long Island or in the Los Angeles 

 region could impose losses of revenue from recrea- 

 tional spending alone in the vicinity of $30 million 

 and $51 million respectively.^' 



In May 1967, the IMCO Council met to 

 consider the Torrey Canyon disaster and delin- 

 eated the following areas for further study: 



—New means of construction and equipment of 

 ships with a view to limiting the risk of collision or 

 stranding and to avoiding or minimizing the escape 

 of oil, or hazardous or noxious cargoes from ships 

 into the sea as a result of such accidents 



^^Rienow, The Oil Around Us, The New York Times 

 Magazine, June 4, 1967, p. 27. 



^^OU Spillage Study 2-6 (A Report to the United 

 States Coast Guard by Battelle Northwest, Battelle 

 Memorial Institute, 1967). 



Report to the President, supra note 27, at 4. 



^"New York Times, April 3, 1967, p. 94, col. 1. 



Report to the President, supra note 27, at 4. 



VIII-88 



