Puget Sound Spill

When a fishing boat sank near San Juan Island this summer, spilling diesel into the Puget Sound, it was a race to retrieve the boat, stop the spread of fuel oil and prevent marine life from swimming into it.

Story by Carrley Smith

December 9, 2022

San Juan Island holds a tremendous human and natural history. It is a popular tourist destination where guides, like myself, lead kayaking trips along the beautiful and dynamic coastline. Midsummer brings about prevailing southerly winds, pushing a cool breeze up the bluffs and rocky coastline. Sunshine radiates through Douglas fir trees that stand tall over the water, some holding large nests for bald eagle residents. Orange madrona trees line the coastline and overlook sea birds diving for herring in front of harbor seals sunbathing on the rocks. 

Just a few minutes’ drive from Smallpox Bay on the west side of San Juan Island, the diesel smell was overpowering. My group and I launched from the bay in kayaks and paddled out into the Haro Strait. The thin rainbow sheen covering the water would have been beautiful if I had not known what it meant: a boat sank nearby.

Around 5 p.m. on Aug. 13, the Aleutian Isle, a 58-foot salmon fishing vessel, sank off the west side of San Juan Island. The U.S. Coast Guard immediately began a search and rescue operation for the vessel's crew. Fellow fishing vessels were first on scene and swiftly rescued all five crew members. The Coast Guard then shifted to a marine protection mission when the owners of the Aleutian Isle estimated that 2,500 gallons of diesel fuel and other oils remained on the boat. The fuel tank leaked diesel, which created a thin iridescent sheen covering two square miles on the surface of the Haro Strait. The cause of the accident remains unknown. 

A response team, composed of the U.S. Coast Guard, Washington Department of Ecology (Ecology), San Juan County Office of Emergency Management, the Swinomish Tribe, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Canadian authorities and numerous volunteers, mobilized to address the environmental impacts.

The west side of San Juan Island is an incredibly biodiverse area with unique ecosystems. It is a crucial fishing ground for tribal and non-tribal fisheries, and home to the critically endangered Southern Resident Killer Whales (Southern Residents) who forage on salmon alongside the fishing vessels. 

“Out of all places in the state of Washington, this is probably the worst place to have a spill,”  said Faith Knighton, the Scientific Support Coordinator at NOAA Office of Response and Restoration.

Soon after the Aleutian Isle sank, Don Noviello, the Oil Spill Team Manager at the Department of Fish and Wildlife, and his team, were called to assess the species and habitats at risk. The Southern Residents were on the top of the list. In the hours after the spill, a group of Southern Residents were approaching just a few miles away, eventually turning around and swimming the other direction. 

“If the whales weren’t there, I knew they were coming,” said Noviello. “That was kinda a nightmare scenario for me.” 

The Southern Residents are down to a population of 73 individuals who sometimes socialize together in an event called a super pod.

“If a large oil spill were to occur at the same time as one of these super pods, I think there's a very significant likelihood that it would be an extinction-level event for this group,” said Noviello. 

The location of the Southern Residents were monitored around the clock and strategies were quickly set in place to prevent whales from entering the contaminated areas using noise deterrent devices. No whales entered the diesel sheen.

Fuel oil released into any environment is toxic, and global oceans see hundreds to thousands of oil spills every day, according to a 2019 study. Large and small oil spills have lasting negative effects on the marine environment and wildlife. 

Different types of oil interact with the marine environment in different ways. Diesel is a refined petroleum oil and has different properties than an unrefined crude oil. It is difficult to contain, but it can dissipate and evaporate quickly. Crude oil is a heavy sinking oil that’s thick, sticky and poses greater risk to the environment than diesel.

“Diesel is what we call a lighter oil, it floats very thin on the water surface. It still affects whales, it affects birds, it affects wildlife, but thankfully it's not crude oil or something that's really heavy,” said Ty Keltner, communications manager for oil spills at Ecology.

NOAA categorizes the amount of diesel released by the Aleutian Isle as a small diesel spill, between 500 and 5,000 gallons. Knighton worked for over five weeks straight, supplying forecasts about weather, tides and currents, and other crucial information about sensitive habitats. Knighton said although the spill was categorized as small, the sensitive local habitats and large scale response made it a significant spill.

The response for this spill generated effort across multinational agencies for more than 40 days. This area is notorious for strong currents and fast tide swings, making it challenging to recover dispersed oil.

To protect ecosystems and wildlife from diesel spill areas, response teams create a physical blockade of booms, floating barriers that resemble big sausage links. Booms limited boat travel and impacted some local economies; however, they were incredibly effective in preventing the diesel from reaching sensitive shore habitats on San Juan Island.

“Throughout the whole response they had several miles of boom deployed. We basically proactively put it everywhere to try and keep oil from going on the beaches,” said Knighton. 

The Aleutian Isle continued to release oil from where it sat more than 200 feet under the ocean’s surface. The plan was to plug the holes in the leaking fuel tank and lift the boat from the water, which required a specialized team of divers. Retrieval of the vessel posed great dangers for the divers due to deep water, loose netting from the fishing equipment and severe and unpredictable tide swings. 

Over five weeks, the Aleutian Isle was eventually recovered with relatively minimal environmental harm.

San Juan Island is logistically hard to get to and this response was successful partly because of work done ahead of time, including equipment like booms already on the island in preparation for an oil spill and previously established community connections. Large scale oil spill drills are regulated by Ecology and practiced often in Washington State. 

“When an oil spill happens it involves a village, it involves a whole community,” said Knighton. “Everyone needs to be trained, prepared and ready to go.”

There are 4,000 reported oil spills in Washington each year, many of them being small marine diesel spills causing cumulative effects. There has been a significant increase in the amount of vessel traffic in the Puget Sound, increasing the likelihood of a catastrophic spill despite strengthened regulations around oil shipment. 

“You can sit on the bluff there and see all of the commercial traffic that goes through the Haro Strait. It’s a pretty significant channel for cargo vessels and tankers,” said Knighton. “There’s a potential there for a much bigger release of something far more impactful than diesel.”

Disastrous oil spills such as the 1988 Nestucca in Washington and the 1989 Exxon Valdez in Alaska have had severe cultural, economic and environmental impacts that have lasted generations. These events prompted the organizations that are in place today to respond to future oil spills.

It is unknown what caused the Aleutian Isle to sink, or if the accident was preventable. If the response agencies and volunteers had not taken rapid and persistent action, the environmental effects could have been significant. The likelihood of future spills in the Puget Sound is great and prevention is the best spill response.

“I think it’s another reason we should be moving to green energy, away from having to move vast quantities of petroleum products around either by pipeline, rail or vessel,” said Noviello. “The more you move oil, the more likely you’re going to have a spill.”

Carrley Smith is an environmental science major at Western who wishes to use science and storytelling to protect our world’s oceans.