Cosco Busan leaves San Francisco

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- Five weeks after the San Francisco Bay oil spill, the ship responsible has left port.

The Cosco Busan is bound for Asia, but we're still dealing with the mess it left behind -- the remnants of 58,000 gallons of thick bunker oil.

The Cosco Busan is insured for $300 million dollars and it could need all of that coverage once the claims from the federal government, the state, the city and individual fishermen are toweled.

The Cosco Busan passed under the Golden Gate Bridge at 11:45 a.m. on Thursday morning. The ship was allowed to leave after posting a $79.5 million dollar bond, the value of the ship.

The Department of Fish and Game says the ship's owner, Regal Stone, Ltd. will be responsible for the costs of cleanup and recovery.

Right now the bill totals about $61 million dollars.

"That is just for the cleanup costs, not the individual claims that are going to come from the people that lost work time, that were not able to fish. It's not going to cover the people that were not able to go out and enjoy wild life or enjoy the outdoors," said Steve Edinger from the Department of Fish and Game.

The Department of Fish and Game says the Pacific shoreline cleanup has ended. Inside the bay, clean-up continues near Horseshoe Cove in Marin, the Berkeley Marina and Point Isabel in the East Bay.

About 1,800 dead birds were found, 648 died after being rescued. Of 1,100 live birds rescued, 390 have been released.

"It's going to be years and years that we will see effects from the oil in this event. However most of the oil that we could clean up has been cleaned up," said Edinger.

Environmentalists say the state has no system in place for rapid response to oil spills. They say the laws have to be changed.

"Probably the biggest things left behind are that the law hasn't changed. So we are in the Groundhog Day  we are going to repeat the same mistake again and again unless we change the laws," said Warner Chabot from Ocean Conservancy.

"We're looking at that right now. We have a pledge from the governor that we have to look at this event, figure out why it occurred, how to prevent it from occurring and how to make sure that California is best protected," said Edinger.

The Bay Bridge tower struck by the Cosco Busan was not damaged, but the fender protecting it was. That fender has been repaired three weeks ahead of schedule, and for less than expected  $1.5 million dollars instead of $2 million dollars.

The Department of Fish and Game expects ongoing active clean up to continue for quite a while at least until mid-February.

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