Transcription
Have you ever wondered why it is still leaking oil? I do not mean why it sank in the first place. If you are watching this video, you probably already know that.
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But, if you are unfamiliar, the USS Arizona was an American battleship sitting in Pearl Harbor on the morning of December the 7th, 1941, when Japanese aircraft attacked the Pacific Fleet. A 1,760-lb armor-piercing bomb penetrated the forward deck and detonated the ship's ammunition magazine. The explosion was so violent it lifted the entire ship out of the water. The Arizona sank in 9 minutes. She's been sitting on the bottom of Pearl Harbor ever since.
What I want to know is why she's still leaking oil. The Arizona has been leaking oil every single day since December 7th, 1941. That is over 80 years of continuous >> [music] >> leaking. Visitors to the memorial today can still see it, small black drops rising from the wreck, spreading into a rainbow sheen on the surface of the harbor. They call it the black tears of the Arizona.
So, why is nobody stopped it? The answer is more complicated than you might think. It comes down to the ship's condition, the oil itself, and a decision that the US Navy made a long time ago, and they are not going back on that decision.
On December 6th, 1941, the day before the attack, the Arizona had been refueled to a full load. She was carrying 1.5 million gallons of bunker C fuel oil, a thick, heavy grade of fuel not far removed from crude oil. The ship was scheduled to return to the mainland at the end of the month, so she needed that full load. That decision to top off her tanks the day before the attack is one of the great pieces of tragic timing in naval history.
When the explosion hit, the fire burned for 2 and 1/2 days. Much oil burned off in that fire. Much more spilled directly into the harbor during the sinking.
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But, the Arizona's fuel tanks are deep in the hull, and they are tough. Many of them survived the explosion and the fire largely intact. When the ship settled on the bottom of Pearl Harbor at a depth of about 40 ft, those tanks went with her, still full of oil, and they have been sitting there ever since.
The current best estimates are that somewhere between 500,000 and 600,000 gallons of oil remain inside the Arizona's hull right now. At the rate it has been leaking, somewhere between two and nine quarts a day, depending on which study you look at, the National Park Service estimates it could continue leaking for another 500 years. Let me put that another way. The oil dripping out of the USS Arizona today is not expected to stop until somewhere around the year 2500. That is not a typo.
So, why has no one simply removed it? This is the interesting part. The question was studied seriously from the 1990s onwards by the Navy, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the National Park Service. What they found was that removing the oil is not as simple as it sounds.
The first problem is the condition of the hull. The Arizona has been submerged in salt water for over 80 years. The metal is heavily corroded. Sections of the ship have already collapsed. The hull is fragile in ways that are difficult to fully assess from the outside. Scientists and divers monitor the wreck every year, measuring the thickness of the metal in the fuel tanks. What they have found is that the tanks are deteriorating slowly but consistently.
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Any attempt to drill into those tanks, or to cut into the hull to extract the oil, risks rupturing them entirely. Instead of a slow drip of a few quarts a day, you could suddenly have hundreds of thousands of gallons of heavy fuel oil released directly into Pearl Harbor. The cure could easily be far worse than the disease.
The second problem is the oil itself. Bunker C fuel is not like petrol. It is thick, almost tar-like, and it does not break down easily. Scientists from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution have been studying the oil leaking from the Arizona, and their findings are remarkable. After 80 years underwater, the oil has barely changed. Most oil spills see significant chemical degradation within weeks. The oil inside the Arizona has been sitting in low oxygen in closed tanks, and has barely been touched by the microbes that normally break petroleum down. It's almost the same oil that went into the tanks in 1941.
That is actually useful scientifically. The Arizona has become what researchers call a living laboratory for understanding how oil behaves over decades inside a shipwreck. There are around 5,000 World War II wrecks sitting on the ocean floor worldwide, and most of them have oil on board. What happens to that oil eventually is a question that matters, and the Arizona is giving scientists a rare chance to study it.
The USS Arizona is a designated war grave. More than 900 of those aboard on December the 7th, 1941, remain inside the ship. The Navy decided early that they would remain with their vessel, considered to be at rest at sea. Over 40 men who survived the attack and outlived the war later chose to have their ashes placed inside the wreck as well, to rest alongside their shipmates. A flagpole was erected on the wreck in 1950, and the flag has been raised and lowered on it daily ever since.
Cutting into that hull to remove the oil means cutting into a designated war grave. The Navy has been clear that is not something they are willing to do. The oil stays because disturbing the ship to remove it would mean disturbing those at rest inside, and that is a line they will not cross.
The memorial that sits above the Arizona today was dedicated in 1962. >> [music] >> It was designed by architect Alfred Preis, who was himself interned as an enemy alien after the Pearl Harbor attack because of his Austrian birth. His design sags in the middle and rises at both ends, representing initial defeat and ultimate victory. It straddles the wreck without touching it. More than 2 million people visit every year. From the sides of the memorial, you can look directly down at the hull of the ship below the surface. And if you watch long enough, you will see the oil rising.
A 2008 Department of Defense report found that the type of oil leaking from the Arizona, heavy bunker C fuel, is particularly harmful to marine life. The report described long-term environmental persistence and increased exposure of toxic components to the surrounding environment. Environmental groups have raised concerns. The Navy and the Park Service monitor it, but there is no plan to stop it. The environmental impact of a slow drip of a few quarts a day is considered manageable. The risk of making things catastrophically worse by trying to fix it is not.
So, the oil is still leaking because the tanks survived the sinking, because the hull is now too fragile to safely cut into, because the oil inside is so well preserved that removing it is genuinely dangerous, and because the ship is a designated war grave, and those inside are not going to be disturbed.
The Arizona went into Pearl Harbor with 1.5 million gallons of fuel on December 6th, 1941. She was supposed to sail home at the end of the month. She never did, and the oil that was loaded onto her the day before the attack is still there, still leaking, >> [music] >> drop by drop, rising to the surface of Pearl Harbor >> [music] >> every single day. It has been doing that for over 80 years. According to the best estimates anyone has, it will still be doing it long after everyone alive today is gone.
Now, if you enjoyed this video and want to see more like it, please let me know in the comments, and I will make more of these for more ships. Be sure to subscribe so you do not miss those, and I will see you next time.