Posted on: Tuesday, October 7, 2003

Leaks from USS Arizona subject of study

Associated Press

CHARLESTON, S.C. — To some, the tiny streams of oil leaking from the wreck of the battleship USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor are the tears of its crew. But others say the oil leak foreshadows an ecological disaster.

Now a researcher from the Medical University of South Carolina is working to prevent a massive oil spill.

"My feeling is that at some point, we could have several large (oil) releases or one very large release," said Pam Morris, an environmental scientist at MUSC.

Scientists say that eventually, the ship's decks and bulkheads will collapse and the oil will spill.

Morris, who works jointly for both MUSC and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, is working on the National Park Service's Arizona project.

She is studying the feeding habits of bacteria that live on the outer portions of the ship and feed on the leaking fuel oil. Morris suspects the waste from the bacteria is speeding the Arizona's decay.

"Basically what they are doing is creating a more corrosive environment," said Morris, who started on the project after meeting National Park Service archaeologists who visited Charleston several years ago to document the Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley.

Morris said the oil leaking from the ship has not changed, suggesting the bacteria are not eating much of the oil from inside the Arizona.

"The organisms we are looking at were isolated from sediments surrounding the ship, and that had collected on the hull," she said. "It is these organisms, which can live on oil, that we are studying now."

One solution would be to pump out the Arizona's tanks, but the ship is also a national shrine that some say should not be touched.

For now, the ship is considered sound, said Jennifer Butticci, a guide at the National Park Service's USS Arizona Memorial.

"The outside hull is pretty much intact and in good condition," she said. But she said only about 1 percent of the interior of the ship has been explored since the Dec. 7, 1941, attack, in which 1,177 Arizona crewmen were lost.

Morris said the oil problem will get worse.

As much as 2 liters a day has leaked to the harbor surface. The oil appears to move out of Pearl Harbor and into the Pacific, although scientists are not sure where it ends up.

Some officials have suggested an oil-containment boom be put around the ship, but there is concern that would spoil the shrine.

"This is really pretty sacred to a lot of people," Morris said.