Letter from Washington

One of the biggest disasters-that-weren’t in American history occurred in December, when the tanker Argo Merchant ran aground off Nantucket and began to cough up its cargo of oil. The reactions were neo-Chicken Little. Russell Train, the Environmental Protection Agency director, who, rumor has it, still hopes to click with the Carter people, called it “the biggest oil-spill disaster on the American coast in our history.” Senator Kennedy, as is his wont, held hearings. The networks covered it around the clock; NBC called it “an ecological disaster to marine life” and predicted that the black muck would spread across the ocean floor, wiping out such bottom-dwelling species as lobsters, crabs, flounders, and scallops. So convincing were the media predictions of disaster that a group of Cape Cod fishermen sued the owners and the captain of the Argo Merchant for $60 million for destroying their livelihood.

It was perhaps one of the most widely publicized and comprehensively covered disasters in American history. But the problem is that it didn’t happen. In fact, today they can’t find the oil. It never reached the prime Georges Bank fishing grounds. It never touched those lobsters and crabs and scallops. In fact, it never hit the bottom at all. As the Coast Guard kept trying to tell anyone who would listen, the Argo Merchant’ carried #6 fuel oil, and #6 fuel oil is significantly lighter than sea water. There is no way, in other words, that it could blanket the bottom, as NBC confidently told us it would. Eventually, according to the Coast Guard, floating #6 fuel oil can coagulate into tar balls that will sink to the bottom. But these balls have hard outer surfaces and are inert and non-toxic.

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One of the biggest disasters-that-weren’t in American history occurred in December, when the tanker Argo Merchant ran aground off Nantucket and began to cough up its cargo of oil. The reactions were neo-Chicken Little. Russell Train, the Environmental Protection Agency director, who, rumor has it, still hopes to click with the Carter people, called it “the biggest oil-spill disaster on the American coast in our history.” Senator Kennedy, as is his wont, held hearings. The networks covered it around the clock; NBC called it “an ecological disaster to marine life” and predicted that the black muck would spread across the ocean floor, wiping out such bottom-dwelling species as lobsters, crabs, flounders, and scallops. So convincing were the media predictions of disaster that a group of Cape Cod fishermen sued the owners and the captain of the Argo Merchant for $60 million for destroying their livelihood.

It was perhaps one of the most widely publicized and comprehensively covered disasters in American history. But the problem is that it didn’t happen. In fact, today they can’t find the oil. It never reached the prime Georges Bank fishing grounds. It never touched those lobsters and crabs and scallops. In fact, it never hit the bottom at all. As the Coast Guard kept trying to tell anyone who would listen, the Argo Merchant’ carried #6 fuel oil, and #6 fuel oil is significantly lighter than sea water. There is no way, in other words, that it could blanket the bottom, as NBC confidently told us it would. Eventually, according to the Coast Guard, floating #6 fuel oil can coagulate into tar balls that will sink to the bottom. But these balls have hard outer surfaces and are inert and non-toxic.