A dilemma dating to Pearl Harbor
Of The Post and Courier Staff
PHOTO:Dr. Pam Morris of MUSC looks over oil samples she is studying that came from the wreckage of the battleship Arizona.
Local scientist studies oil leaking from sunken battleship Arizona
According to Navy legend, the streams of oil leaking
nonstop from inside the sunken battleship Arizona at Pearl Harbor represent
the tears of her crew and won't stop rising until the last Arizona veteran
dies of old age. To others, the ship is a 500,000-gallon time bomb. From her
lab on Charleston Harbor, MUSC environmental scientist Dr. Pam Morris is
trying to prevent what many see as an ecological disaster looming in far off
Hawaii. Unless a solution to the Arizona's oil problem is found soon, the
day will come when the ship's sunken maze of encrusted bulkheads and decks
succumb and collapse, spilling her insides, perhaps within 30 to 50
years."My feeling is that at some point, we could have several large (oil)
releases or one very large release," Morris said.It's a crisis few
envisioned on the morning of Dec. 7, 1941, when carrier-based Japanese
planes swept down on Pearl Harbor, crippling the United States' Pacific
fleet and launching America's entry into World War II.
Morris, who works jointly for the Medical University of South Carolina and
the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, is set to move ahead on
one of the seemingly more bizarre but integral aspects of the National Park
Service's Arizona project. She is studying the feeding habits of the sea's
tiniest creatures, bacteria that live on the outer portions of the ship and
feed on carbon-rich No. 6 fuel oil from the 1940s. In a nutshell, Morris
will follow what happens after these microorganisms eat and whether their
waste is speeding up the ship's decay. She suspects that it is."Basically
what they are doing is creating a more corrosive environment," said Morris,
who joined the Arizona project after meeting with underwater archaeologists
from the National Park Service who came to Charleston a few years ago to map
and document the Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley. Graduate student Amanda
Graham is assisting. "Actually, we found that oil leaking out of the ship
had not changed very much, suggesting that bacteria were not eating much of
the oil inside the ship," Morris said."The organisms we are looking at were
isolated from sediments surrounding the ship, and that had collected on the
hull. It is these organisms, which can live on oil, that we are studying
now."So why not just pump the oil out of the ship's rows of fuel storage
bunkers and head off the crisis? It's not that easy. The Arizona is a
political football. Ever since the ship became a national shrine to the
victims of the 1941 attack, it has been staunchly protected as a resting
place of honored dead that cannot be trespassed.
Of the estimated 2,390 American lives lost during the Pearl Harbor attack,
about half were killed when the Arizona blew up. A single bomb penetrated
her decks, setting off a chain reaction of stored shells and fuel that
engulfed the ship in a fireball. About 1,177 Arizona crewmen were lost, many
disappearing in the furnacelike heat of the blast. As far as preserving the
ship for history, no one is sure how to proceed. Some say the Arizona should
be saved so it will last hundreds of years; others think it's better to let
it succumb to time in memory of the crew.Jennifer Butticci, a supervisory
National Park Service guide at the Arizona Memorial, said the ship for now
is considered sound, to a point. "The outside hull is pretty much intact and
in good condition," she said. Because of the severity of the bombing "we
don't know internally what the integrity of the ship is" since only a small
amount was ever explored, less than 1 percent, she estimated.Morris said the
fuel oil problem is sure to worsen.For the past 60 years, as much as two
liters a day has leaked upward from the bowels of the Arizona, exiting
through portholes and hatches in the decks. The oil rises in distinct dark
droplets but spreads out in a rainbow-colored sheen once it reaches the
surface, carried away in large traceable slicks."When you get off the tour
boat, you ... get a whiff of petroleum," Morris said.
The oil that is released appears to move out of Pearl Harbor by currents and
into the Pacific Ocean, although scientists aren't sure where it ends up.
Pearl Harbor isn't considered pristine after decades of U.S. Navy use and
other ship traffic and industry. What solutions will be reached regarding
the Arizona's fuel is difficult to say. Officials could try to catch the
oil, but there is a concern that a yellow containment boom around the ship
would spoil the aesthetics of the shrine."This is really pretty sacred to a
lot of people," Morris said.But she added that now is the time to think
about the Arizona's future."It's an oil problem they are going to have to
face."