On December 23, 2009, Crowley Maritime Corporation’s tugboat
Pathfinder was serving as an ice scout vessel in Prince William
Sound. At about 6:18 pm that evening, the 136-foot vessel ran
aground on Bligh Reef, the same reef on which the Exxon Valdez
grounded twenty years earlier. The Pathfinder grounding
investigation released by Coast Guard showed areas of concern in
the operation of the tug. The grounding of the Pathfinder caused
extensive damage to its hull opening two fuel tanks along its
centerline. Crowley initially estimated that 6,410 gallons of
diesel fuel were released into the water, based on its estimate
of the amount of fuel in the tanks at the time of the incident.
However, when the vessel was subsequently dry-docked, 1,088
gallons of diesel were found remaining in the damaged fuel
tanks, resulting in Crowley reducing its estimate of the amount
spilled to 5,322 gallons. The Coast Guard’s official report on
the Pathfinder incident, released in May of this year, lists a
number of factors that cont