New Oil Slick Delays Valdez Entry to Port

SAN DIEGO —  The Exxon Valdez, the tanker responsible for the nation’s worst oil spill, may have caused a 13-mile oil slick off the coast and will not be allowed into San Diego Bay for repairs until the Coast Guard can determine whether the crippled tanker was the source, officials said late Monday.

The ship’s entry into the bay, set for this morning, also was delayed by the discovery of large steel plates jutting downward from the hull which would have made it unable to clear the harbor bottom.

An Exxon Shipping Co. spokeswoman said the plates, which will have to be removed, were bent downward during the Valdez’ 2,200-mile voyage from Prince William Sound in Alaska to San Diego.

Coast Guard officials late Monday said testing had confirmed the presence of oil in a slick within a mile of the Valdez, which was about 30 miles offshore. But the tests have not established the source of the spill.

“At this point it is still too early to confirm what caused the sheen on the water,” said Coast Guard Lt. Larry Solberg. “We just know there is a minute amount of a petroleum product.”

A thin sheen of oil in some areas and a thicker slick in others was sighted Monday during a final inspection by the Coast Guard and other agencies, which must give approval before the Valdez enters port.

“We believe it is coming from the Valdez, off the port bow,” said John Grant, a biologist with the California Department of Fish and Game, which joined the Coast Guard in the inspection.

An Exxon official late Monday acknowledged that the oil could have come from the Valdez.

“I think that is a possibility, but it is one of many possibilities,” said Carrie Chassin, a spokeswoman for the oil company. “It is undetermined at this point.”

State fish and game officials said the slick posed no danger to marine life and was unlikely to reach local beaches. By late Monday, winds were blowing the oil parallel to the shoreline and dissipating it, a Coast Guard official said.

The Valdez, towed June 23 from Alaska, arrived off San Diego late Sunday, and was scheduled to dock at the National Steel & Shipbuilding Co. yard for a nine-month, $25-million repair job.

On March 24 the Valdez hit a reef and spilled 11 million gallons along the pristine Alaskan coast, polluting hundreds of miles of shoreline and killing thousands of marine animals. The cleanup is continuing.

Before the ship was moved from Alaska, Exxon officials assured San Diego agencies and environmentalists that the vessel’s tanks had been scrubbed and cleaned of oil.