Chapter 7
Fail-Safe
“But are we following our contingency plan?” Emma Branson said, glaring at her deputies in what had to be the most claustrophobic meeting room on the entire Oilstar site. “Can we at least say that much? We have to find some kind of positive spin for Oilstar.”
“Uh, we rescued the crew of the tanker—how about that?”
“What kind of positive spin is that?” Branson snorted. “We rescue a captain who blames the whole mess on some mysterious crewman who’s disappeared? The public wants to see every member of the Zoroaster crew shot.”
Charlene Epstein, a deputy with severe gray-blond hair, slapped a stack of thick books that no one had ever bothered to read before. “We think we adhered to all the legal requirements, but the plan is eight volumes long. Six thousand pages of convoluted sentences and flow charts that nobody ever thought about needing to follow!”
Branson shook her head, disgusted instead of surprised. The arguments had continued all morning. Arriving from her brief meeting with Mayeaux after his grandstanding news conference, now she was ready for some shouting. She counted off names on her fingers. “The Petroleum Industry Response Organization signed off on it, the Departments of Transportation, Interior, Energy, the EPA, the Coast Guard Pacific Area Strike Team, the American Petroleum Institute. Didn’t anybody read the damned plan?”
“Everybody’s passing the buck, Ms. Branson,” Henry Cochran said. “No one ever really believed a million-barrel spill would happen.”
“Lucky us, to witness it in our lifetimes!” Charlene snapped. All of Branson’s deputies began arguing at once.
She tolerated only a moment of the chaotic shouting, enough to let them blow off some steam, then she slammed her hand down like a schoolteacher. The deputies shut up.
“So,” Branson said, her voice rattling, “we wrote all this documentation to cover ourselves, but nobody even knows what we committed to. We’ve got an army of demonstrators outside the gate. People are making death threats on me, and not one of you has a clue about what Oilstar is supposed to be doing.”
“It’s not that simple—” Cochran interrupted. Sweat covered his bald head and florid face, making his fashion-frame glasses slide down his nose.
“Cut the bullshit, please,” Branson said quietly. “What about the lightering operations? How much did we pull off before Zoroaster went under?”
Walter Pelcik squinted at his figures, running pudgy fingers through his beard. “75,000 barrels. That’s a damned good amount, I might add.” He grabbed another piece of paper. “The skimmers are recovering some of what’s floating on the surface, but for all intents and purposes we’ve got an inexhaustible supply down there inside the hulk, and it’s going to keep leaking for years.”
Charlene Epstein shuddered. “We already have a spill that’s four to five times greater than the maximum estimates of the Valdez—and it’s not way up in Nowheresville, Alaska. It’s in downtown San Francisco.”
Cochran shook his head, then yanked off his glasses. “They are going to string us up. We might as well all change our names and move to Argentina.”
“Enough of that, Mr. Cochran,” Branson said. “Oilstar will accept responsibility for this spill, and we will make our absolute best effort to clean it up. Is that clear? Have we requested all available skimmers worldwide? Do we need more booms? What else can we do to mitigate this disaster?”
Walter Pelcik folded his hands over his paunch. “We’ve ordered everything. The other oil companies are pitching in, mostly for the PR value.”
Charlene slid one of the heavy books off a stack. “What other options do we have? They won’t let us do controlled burning. The Bay Area Air Quality Management people would rather smell stinking petroleum fumes for a decade than have a few days of black smoke.”
Branson tried to recall everything she knew about their own preparations. “How about dispersants? We’ve got a whole stockpile—why don’t we use them?”
“No chance!” said Pelcik. “The environmentalists are singing the same song on that one, and you know how powerful those groups are when they actually agree on something!”
Cochran leaned over the conference table. “Dispersants break the oil up and suspend it in the water. Right now the crude is floating on top. Dispersants would mix it with the water, make it look great from above—but the suspended oil would still be killing fish and damaging the food chain.”
Branson sighed in exasperation. For the first time in her life, she felt like giving up. “You mean we’ve got nothing else? What do you suggest we do, roll over and die? I won’t believe there are no alternatives.”
“Well there is Argentina,” Cochran said, smiling weakly.
At the doorway, a tall young man cleared his throat. “Excuse me?” He wore a tie and expensive clothes. Beside him stood an older man in jeans and a flannel shirt. “I’m Mitchell Stone and this is Dr. Kramer. We have a meeting with Ms. Branson?” He looked at his watch and smiled before any of the startled deputies could answer. “Looks like our timing is pretty good, because we’re going to offer you something that might solve this crisis.”
For a strange instant, Branson recalled the story of Faust; she wondered if Stone would offer her a magical solution to the Zoroaster spill … for the mere price of her soul.
Cochran glanced at both of their badges, then turned to flip through an appointment book. “Oh. Bioremediation people.”
Branson heaved a weary sigh. Dr. Kramer hung behind Stone, who seemed too full of himself. She decided which one to trust on the basis of her first impression. Kramer looked tired and listless, with a simmering fire behind his eyes. She recalled a memo that had mentioned Kramer’s name, something about losing his family in an accident, an Oilstar fund to send flowers. She had even signed the form letter herself.
“What can we do for you, gentlemen? We’re in the middle of an important meeting.”
Stone flinched a smile. As he stepped into the room, the strong smell of his sweet cologne mingled with the haze of cigarette smoke thickening the air. “We need you to listen to us for a moment. What you decide after that is up to you.”
The deputies frowned at the interruption. “We’ll be brief,” Dr. Kramer interjected, looking very uncomfortable.
Mitch strode toward an overhead projector in the corner of the room. He pulled a set of viewgraphs from under his arm and slapped one on the projector, punching the button that turned on the lamp. The title stood out against the blue-and-gold Oilstar logo: THE PROMETHEUS PROJECT.
Branson sighed. “Is a canned presentation really necessary? I get so much plastic flipped at me that I don’t believe my people can think for themselves anymore. Just talk to me and get it over with.”
Stone faltered, then flicked off the projector. “Of course.” He drew a breath. “In the Bioremediation section, we’ve been searching for a way to use natural microbes to break down substances in the environment, toxic wastes and so forth. Dr. Alex Kramer, here, and myself head up a team studying ways to break down long-chain polymers in landfills. You know, plastic garbage bags, beverage containers, Styrofoam cups, and packaging. Waste products of such polymers deteriorate very slowly. We’re trying to find ways to get rid of it.”
“Excuse me!” Walter Pelcik said, raising his voice. His bushy brown beard stuck out in all directions. “We’ve got an oil spill to deal with here.”
Stone raised his voice a notch higher and continued without acknowledging the interruption, speaking directly to Branson, as if she was the only one who counted. Smart guy. But he had better get to the point in the next few seconds.
“As the first step, we developed an organism we called Prometheus. This little microbe has an appetite for octane—the eight-carbon molecule in gasoline … and crude oil.
“At the time, we didn’t see any use for it, but we applied for an FDA license just in case. Why would anyone want to decompose crude oil? Well, now it seems you might have a use for our little miracle.” Stone looked at the others. Dr. Kramer hovered beside him, fidgeting but not interrupting Stone. The conference room became quiet as the information sank in.
“Let me get this straight,” said Branson. An unexpected sensation twisted inside of her. Hope. “You’ve come up with some kind of germ that eats crude oil?”
“Not all of it,” Dr. Kramer answered, stepping forward, moving in front of Stone, “only the octane component and some of the ring hydrocarbons.”
Branson got right to the point. “So what does it leave behind? What kind of toxic mess are we going to have to deal with? Will we be in worse trouble than we are now, like with dispersants?”
“No.” Dr. Kramer shook his head vigorously. “Octane is just carbon atoms and hydrogen. When the Prometheus organism metabolizes the octane, it leaves behind CO2 and H2O, carbon dioxide and water, with maybe a little hydrogen sulfide—like rotten eggs—from sulfur contaminants in the mix. Nothing toxic whatsoever. It’ll work.”
Stone picked up the thread. “From our studies, we know that 25 percent of the Zoroaster crude is lightweight hydrocarbons that will evaporate off in a few days all by themselves. The rest of it, though, will be broken down slowly by photo-oxidation and natural micro-organisms in the water. That part will take years.”
His eyes gleamed. “What we’re offering is a way to get rid of all the octane in the spill. That, plus the evaporation effects, will decrease the amount of visible oil on the Bay by something like 65 percent in a few days—and it will leave no pollution behind.”
Dr. Kramer cleared his throat. “We need to make clear, though, that Prometheus does not attack longer-chain hydrocarbons. That’s been our problem in fighting Styrofoam and plastic waste. You’ll still be left with the tarry residue they keep showing on the news.”
Branson’s heart pounded, and a flush rose in her face. “But from the public’s point of view, over half the spill will disappear? That’s a dramatic and obvious effect.”
“You said you applied for an FDA license—why don’t you have it? And what if this microbe spreads?” Cochran said. “How are we going to get rid of it when we’re done?”
Dr. Kramer shook his head. He spoke confidently, as if daring them to disbelieve him. “That’s not unusual. It takes years for the FDA to process those things. Anyway, we should be able to get a waiver in an emergency. The other problem will take care of itself. These micro-organisms are not indigenous to the area. We got them out of the ocean, near volcanic vents deep beneath the Gulf of Mexico. We crossbred them with some of the other oil-eating strains from samples along the beaches in Prince William Sound in Alaska. They’ll flourish for a while, feasting on the spilled crude oil, but they’ll die out quickly. They can’t handle this climate, and their food source will disappear as soon as the spill goes away. They can never become airborne.”
“We’ve demonstrated that several times in laboratory tests,” Stone added. “We can show you the reports. Dr. Kramer has all his lab books.”
“Well, we have to do something,” Branson said, tapping her nails on the table. She looked around the smoky room. “And this could look very, very good for Oilstar.”
“It’s not a cure-all,” Dr. Kramer said.
“We’re only interested in a short-term solution for now,” she retorted. “I need something spectacular to confirm that Oilstar is doing all it can. Once the press is satisfied, they’ll turn to some other problem.” She tapped a pencil on the table. “How soon can you have it? When can we try it?”
Stone flipped through viewgraphs to double-check information he should have known perfectly well—unless he was just putting on an act to appear overly conscientious. “Prometheus has been successfully tested. We got piles of reports out of it. We’ve already started making a supply, and the strain reproduces quickly. That’s one of its advantages. Once we get the waiver from the FDA, we can start spraying the spill in a day or so.”
“I’m not sure about this microbe stuff,” Cochran said. “I can just imagine people complaining even louder about genetically engineered organisms than they are about the spill itself.”
“Excuse me,” Dr. Kramer said, as if he had anticipated the question. “Don’t let anyone raise those objections. These micro-organisms are crossbred strains of naturally occurring microbes. No genetic engineering.”
Branson waved aside the words. That part didn’t matter, and she had heard what she needed to know. “If the people stonewall our every effort to clean up the spill, we can take the moral high ground because we offered a solution and they didn’t want it.”
She beamed at Stone and Dr. Kramer. “We’ll call a press conference for tomorrow morning, a regular town meeting. We can let the public decide—and Oilstar wins either way.”
***