Over the CB radio in my truck I heard the warning of the impending explosion that would set the New Carissa afire. I parked my truck and climbed up a hill overlooking the freighter that had run aground in the surf. Waves were beating on the hull of the ship as if the sea were trying to rid itself of that foul thing. I thought how ironic it seemed: a human made creation of steel being subdued by the forces of nature. When will the human race learn that no matter what it can create, the forces of nature will always be more powerful?

The Japanese owned, Panama registered 639-foot New Carissa ran aground on Feb. 4th about 150 yards offshore and a few miles north of the inlet to Coos Bay, Oregon. The ship had lost power while waiting to enter Coos Bay for a load of wood chips. While being pounded by waves, cracks began to develop in the hull and in the fuel tanks which carried (at first estimate) 140,000 gallons of bunker oil (later estimates put it at 400,000 gallons). Some of the oil began to leak from the ship and wash ashore upon the beach. On Feb. 10, an attempt was made to burn the fuel that remained on the ship, but the attempt failed.

That night I received a call from an environmental company that I sometimes work for; they told me they needed every qualified person they could find to go down to Coos Bay. I left a few hours later bound for Portland, where I picked up a truck and drove down to Coos Bay. I arrived at the base of operations, which was a chaotic mass of trucks, equipment, and people from a number of environmental companies, the Coast Guard, and the Oregon National Guard. After I signed in, I was put to work. Later that day they tried to set the ship afire again with a massive explosion.

Bangalore torpedoes--metal tubes containing explosives--were used to breach the ship's fuel tanks, allowing the pressurized bunker oil to rush into the cargo holds. In the cargo holds were placed twelve 55-gallon drums of napalm that were simultaneously ignited by C-4 plastic explosives. Two huge explosions, one right after the other, lit up the sky, sending a bright yellow ball of flame hundreds of feet into the air. First I saw the brightness of the explosion, then I heard the loud blast, and finally I felt the shock wave that shook the ground where I stood. I could smell the odor of burning fuel and taste it in my mouth. A large black cloud of smoke drifted away from the ship carrying contaminants from the oil, the lead paint from the ship's bulkheads, and everything else that burned up on the ship.

A fire was burning from the stern to the bow of the ship. After a while the fire burned so hot that parts of the hull began to glow orange. I knew then that the ship would break apart. A few hours later in my motel room, I heard on the news that the ship had broken into two parts. Sometimes, when I am tired and a bit down, I wonder if our struggles have any real purpose. My thoughts after what I had seen made me once again understand that our struggles are about resisting the insanity of the industrial monster--lust and power and greed. Mother Earth warns us that we cannot dominate her and that we travel our misguided path at the risk of our own doom.

The next morning I received a wake up call at 5:00 in the morning, loaded up the truck, and made my way out to the base again. There we suited up in our protective gear and went out to the beach to work on cleaning up the mess. When I caught sight of the ship, I was stunned. There it was, still on fire, but in two parts. In the fog, with the smoke billowing out of it and waves moving between the two sections of the burnt out hull, it looked like something out of an apocalypse movie--like a symbol of the destruction of industrialized western civilization.

Along with a few hundred others, I began digging up thick globs of bunker oil from the beach. The clean-up effort was disorganized, and it seemed to me that it was mostly just for show. All Terrain Vehicles (ATVs) were running up and down the beach, spreading the oil contamination and pressing it deeper into the sand. Then, with oil on their tires, the ATVs would run off the beach. With the destruction of the fragile plant life on the sand dunes by ATVs, trucks, equipment, and people, I had to wonder if we were doing more harm to the environment than help. But then, just like all other companies, environmental companies operate for profit. Thus, environmental disasters become good opportunities for environmental companies to make great profits. In the meantime, nobody seems to give a damn about what happens to Mother Earth!

There were a number of things that could have logically been done. First, they should have cleaned a path high on the beach for the ATVs. The ATVs were needed to remove the bags of shoveled-up oil and contaminated sand. Then they should have removed all the driftwood. This seems almost too obvious to anyone who can think. If you have contaminated driftwood, what will happen to it when the high tide comes back in? Here's a clue: why do they call it driftwood? And the driftwood that is not contaminated--what will happen to it when it drifts back out into the oily water?

Most of the bunker oil that leaked from the ship didn't wash up on the beach; instead, it sank to the ocean floor. Bunker oil, when it's not heated, is thick like tar. So what sinks to the bottom will kill all marine life that it covers. As time passes, some of it will slowly wash up onto the beach. Some of the bunker oil will break up into smaller balls of oil. These balls of oil have been found as far as 50 miles to the north and are getting close to the Sea Lion Caves. Along with the bunker oil, a lot of diesel fuel was also spilled. Together, they caused a fuel slick that made its way into Coos Bay, threatening the shellfish industry there.

I left Coos Bay after four days, because the company I worked for wanted me to go back up north to pick up another truck loaded with equipment. I took one last look at the broken ship; the stern was listing at about 20 degrees, and it seemed to me that it would eventually capsize. The bow was anchored, but had been moving with the tides. From what I hear, they plan to tow both parts of the ship out as far as they can and let it sink.

I can't write this without also writing about what causes such disasters. Ships are always in danger on the oceans of the world, but in the last 20 years that danger has increased, mostly because of "flags of convenience" ships. To get away from safety, environmental, and labor laws, and avoid labor unions, many ship owners register their ships in countries that have few or no maritime regulations. Three countries in particular are notorious for this: Panama, the Bahamas, and Liberia. These ships are not maintained well, are not inspected regularly, and the crews are made up of the lowest paid workers that can be found. Nine times out of ten, ships that are involved in maritime disasters are "flag of convenience" ships with non-union crews. The importance of union crews, beyond the well-being of the workers, is that they are experienced and will refuse to sail a dangerous ship.

Basically, these are cheap ships that the owners keep sailing until they sink or break down somewhere. Often they're abandoned, sometimes with the crew still aboard with no way to get back home. Many of these ships have such a tangled web of ownership that it's hard to find out who the real owners are. Many times they can only be traced back to a post office box in the country where they're registered. The New Carissa, for example, is registered in Panama, but the Panamanian company is nothing more than a post office box. Nevertheless, the owners were traced from Panama to a company in the Philippines, which is owned by the Japanese shipping conglomerate Nippon Yusen Kaisha.

So what has the U.S. Government done about the increased danger of flag of convenience ships? Not much. In fact, the U.S. Coast Guard lost some funding during the 1980s, when the government redirected that money to the so-called "war on drugs." This means the Coast Guard inspects fewer ships, and it's less able to respond to emergencies.

Finally, there's the issue of ship construction. It is possible to build ships that are earth friendly, but most are not built that way. They are built as cheaply as possible to provide the maximum profit for ship builders and ship owners. Twenty years working as a marine pipefitter and shipfitter has taught me that.

What the human-made disasters of the world come down to is the disaster of the way we live today. When values of power and greed take precedence, we find ourselves in conflict with Mother Earth. If we don't change the way we live now, our world will be nothing more than what the New Carissa has become.