I came home, yesterday, around noonish. I live on the waterfront of
the Ashley River in Charleston, SC, about 9.5 miles up from the
harbor. The Ashley River, combined with the Cooper River, join
together in downtown Charleston to form the Atlantic Ocean.

I noticed a strong smell of diesel fuel in the air, so proceeded to
check out my diesel cars and truck for a leak. I found nothing. A
neighbor came over to see what I was doing and said he knew where the
smell was coming from, the river. I went down to the waterfront to
find a fairly big oil slick covered the water out front. I called 911
to report it, expecting a hazmat response team to find the leak and
stop it from polluting the river. I was wrong, not for reporting it,
but for expecting some government bureaucrats to DO something to stop
it.

The 911 operator triggered a fire truck pumper from our local city
fire station with three firemen whos lunch was interrupted. Two of
them were all dressed up to fight a fire, so was the truck. They
agreed there was an oil spill in the water and told their dispatcher
so. They called the Coast Guard and SC Department of Health and
Environmental Control (DHEC). Our fire department has no boat or, it
seems, hazmat team equipped for oil spills. They seemed very
reluctant to trespass on anyone's property for fear of the lawyers, so
the local chief arrived. One neighbor has a fuel oil tank on a small
hill overlooking the river, but that seemed secure when the chief
walked over to take a look.

A neighbor, hearing the fire truck ruckus, walked out on his dock and
also noticed the oil so got in his boat to ride around an look upriver
as the tide was going out. He offered the firemen a ride with him,
but they declined as they are not allowed to ride with mere mortals in
private boats, again for fear of being sued, I suppose.

I expected the Coast Guard to send a hazmat team in one of their fast
motor lifeboats or rib boats to be haulin' ass upriver. This was
another hope dashed, when two sailors, a politically-correct team of
one male and one asian female, arrived by car from downtown. These
were the investigators for the legal team, whos job it is to place
blame and see how big a fine they can impose on any violators dumping
oil into the waterways. They didn't have any hazmat materials to stop
the oil leak if we found it, only a little plastic sieve in a plastic
ring and a plastic oil collection bottle to gather evidence to use at
the poor *******s trial before sentencing. It's now over an hour
since my report. Noone, on scene, is capable of stopping an oil leak
or soaking up oil leaking from even a canoe, much less an oil tanker.
Not a single oil soaking pad has been exposed to the hazard.

A DHEC guy arrived who talked to the sailors and firemen. A decision
was made that the sailors were going to handle the investigation to
get the others off the hook. Hands were shaken and the State of South
Carolina's DHEC left without getting his hands oily. The male sailor
took a water sample and sealed the jar while the female sailor took
pictures on her top-of-the-line Sony Mavica SLR still camera to show
her boss the sailor got his shoes muddy taking the sample. His shoes
were the only oil casualty, other than the river and its inhabitants,
in this sordid affair.

Downriver from here, there is only one diesel-powered boat within 5
miles of waterfront. It's an aging sport fisherman, that has been
perched over the river on its electric lift for as long as any of us
can remember. Its owner has long since abandoned deep sea fishing, or
even cruising it up and down the river, because he's quite old and
goes out of state a lot, leaving the once-nice boat to sit and rot in
the hot SC sunshine, abandoned.

The male sailor knows the boat. He has investigated other complaints
of oil leakage from it many months past from other neighbors on the
downriver side of it. He said CG had inspected its overboard
discharge ports and found diesel fuel leaking out of it, long ago.
The owner's son was notified because the owner was out-of-town making
another million, I suppose, and the son and a mechanic were supposed
to "take a look" for oil leaks in the fiberglass hull's interior. Of
course, it seems no follow-up inspection was done to insure the
problem was actually found and corrected.....only that all the
required paperwork and reports were neatly typed without errors and
filed away with the millions of other reports in some haze grey
cabinets for future court actions. The on-scene sailors, Second Class
Petty Officers, USCG, were going to go look, again, at the boat to see
if that was the source of the oil slick. Noone was in a hurry to stop
it.

The North Charleston Fire Chief, alerted to the ruckus on the
waterfront, showed up to confer with the on-scene local chief to make
sure the department was following the book. Firemen who had turned
the truck around to go finish lunch decided to back the truck back
down our dead-end street for the Chief. Lunch was gonna be later then
planned. Some firemen started in on the now-cold greasy fried
chicken. I hoped none of it got into the river to make the oil slick
bigger.

The "chief's conference" was short as government-sponsored conferences
go and both chief's determined they were off the hook for any cleanup,
leaving all responsibilities to the politically-correct sailors to
handle. The firemen all left as they had come, ready to fight that
dumpster fire at a moment's notice. God bless 'em. We should buy 'em
a boat and show 'em how to use it....maybe some oil pads and a little
pump or at least some plastic sheets.

The party broke up soon after the sailors headed over towards Lamb's
Road to look at the diesel boat.....No hurry. They didn't have the
equipment to stop the boat from leaking, anyway, in their nice car.
You'd have to have a BOAT to go under the boat on the lift to put some
plastic under it to catch any diesel oil leaking out of it. Well,
Duhhhh......

I suppose, by now, the son has been notified, the reports are being
neatly typed by the hazmat typing team and all is well, again, on the
Ashley River.....still coated with diesel fuel. The tide'll have to
take care of the cleanup. If you live downriver, keep a sharp eye out
and jack up the boat on your lift another foot.

Thanks.