Gulf Spill Brings New Focus on Bay Concerns

The oil rig disaster in the Gulf Coast is sure to bring new attention to a meeting in Oakland Tuesday.

That's when members from Bay Area conservation groups, fishing  communities and government agencies will get together to discuss findings from investigations into two oil spills in the San Francisco Bay in  order to improve local oil spill response operations.

The public forum, entitled "Oil Spills in San Francisco Bay:  Preparing a Better Response," will focus on two of the biggest Bay spills in  the past three years: the Cosco Busan container ship, which dumped more than  50,000 gallons of fuel oil into the Bay in 2007, and the Dubai Star oil  tanker, which spilled 800 gallons of bunker oil into the Bay in 2009.

"Oil spills have had serious impacts on the Bay, and the lessons  learned from the Cosco Busan and Dubai Star spills and from other regions are  sure to help inform us on what to do better in the future," said Director of  San Francisco Estuary Partnership Judy Kelly in a prepared statement.

Both incidents killed birds and other wildlife, oiled beaches,  marshes, and other habitats around the bay.

The discussion comes at a particularly pertinent time as the world  watches the urgency of oil spill response operations in the Gulf of Mexico.

The event was organized by the nonprofit organization Pacific  Environment, and a coalition of San Francisco Bay stakeholders called the San  Francisco Estuary Partnership. It will take place on Tuesday from 9 a.m. to  3:15 p.m., with a news conference scheduled for 11:35 a.m. at the Elihu  Harris State Building Auditorium in downtown Oakland.