Peggi - sorry for the late reply. Apparently my first attempt to send this
crashed and burned!

Your sources might be thinking of a couple spills. The Tenyo Maru sank off
of Cape Flattery (not near Seattle or Grays Harbor) in 1991, spilling over
100,000 gallons of oil. Although salvage operators did pump off some fuel
from the sunken ship, the great depth involved prohibited removing all
residual oil. There have been sporadic reports that the ship is still
leaking oil (not unreasonable), but "finger-printing" of subsequent tarballs
and oiled fishing gear has shown no match to the Tenyo Maru oil (perhaps due
to weathering). While oiled birds have also occasionally washed up on the
northern outer coast since that time, again there is no match to Tenyo Maru
oil and the oiling is often assumed to be related to more recent pollution
(e.g., passing ships illegally discharging bilge oil offshore).

The last significant Grays Harbor spill occurred in 1988 when the Nestucca
barge spilled over 200,000 gallons offshore. The Nestucca did not sink and
was eventually moved into the Columbia River for repairs, so obviously not a
source for future oil sightings. Natural resource damage assessments were
conducted and paid for both spills - feel free to E-mail me directly for
more information.


Paul Heimowitz
WA Department of Ecology/Spill Damage Assessment
phei461 at wa.ecy.gov