Source: U.S. Coast Guard,http://www.uscg.mil/hq/g-m/nmc/response/stats/Summary.htm (accessed 09 February 2000).

http://www.uscg.mil/hq/g-m/nmc/response/stats/aa.htm

*Oil spill statistics for each year are presented in tabular format at the beginning ofeach section and include the following information: total number of spills and total volume in eachcategory; mean (average), median and maximum spill size; and percentages.

Spill Size - spills are sorted into nine, separate volume ranges (1-100 gallons, 101-1,000 gallons,1,001-3,000 gallons, 3,001-5,000 gallons, ..., 100,001-1,000,000 gallons, over 1,000,000 gallons).

Waterbody - 223 individual waterbodies (Delaware River, San Francisco Bay, Lower MississippiRiver, Gulf of Mexico, Bayou La Batre, etc.) were sorted into nine categories that include theAtlantic and Pacific oceans, Gulf of Mexico, Great Lakes, rivers and canals, harbors, bays andsounds, lakes, and other. In past publications, many rivers, harbors, and tributaries were coded sothat spills in those waterbodies were represented as having occurred in the ocean or gulf to whichthey were connected. This is no longer the case. Waterbodies included in each of these categoriesare listed in Appendix A.

Location - categories include internal/headlands (rivers, harbors, intercoastal waterways, etc.),coastal (territorial waters (0-3 miles)), contiguous zone (3-12 miles), ocean (12-200 miles), oceangeneral, and other.

Major source and detailed source - 53 listed sources in the detailed source table are sorted intoseven broad categories in the major source table. Major sources include tankships, tank barges, allother vessels, facilities, pipelines, all other non-vessel sources, and unknown or not elsewhereclassified (NEC). Because the detailed sources are too numerous to represent graphically, only themajor source categories are presented graphically.

Vessel/Facility Operation (through 1993 only). - 41 individual, coded operations were sorted intoten categories that were reported as ongoing operations at the time of the spill. They include:pumping bilges, bunkering (refueling), tanker/facility operation, cargo transfer/receiving, movementin congested waterway, lightering, underway/transporting, pipeline, other known operation, orunknown operation. Operations data represents information that may be useful for oil transportationrisk assessment. Specific operations within these categories are also listed in Appendix A.After 1993, this table is not provided, because of changes in the data collection system.

Oil Type - 174 different petroleum and non-petroleum oils were sorted into the following six generalcategories: crude oils, heavy fuel oils (#4, #5, & #6 fuel oils), intermediate fuel oils (diesels, lightcrudes,) gasoline (automotive and aviation), other petroleum oils (gas-oil, asphalt, etc.), andnon-petroleum oils (vegetable oils, coconut oil, etc.).

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The passage of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act (FWPCA)provided the U.S. Coast Guardwith statutory authority to regulate oil pollution prevention and responseactivities in United States' waterways. The FWPCA, also known as the CleanWater Act, requires that any discharge of an oil or hazardous substance in a harmful quantity be reportedto the "appropriate agency of the United States". Executive Order 11735, dated August 3, 1973,designated the U.S. Coast Guard as the appropriate agency. As a result, the number of spills reported tothe Coast Guard increased dramatically. It is from this point that the Coast Guard began building thedatabase, now known as the Marine Safety Management System (MSMS), at Coast Guard Headquarters inWashington, DC.

MSMS data represents discharges reported to the Coast Guard by responsible parties (a requirement ofFWPCA), by other private parties, government agencies, or as discovered and reported by Coast Guardpersonnel. All cases in MSMS fall within Coast Guard jurisdiction, as provided for in the NationalContingency Plan (Title 40, Code of Federal Regulations, Part 300). Included in the file are all reporteddischarges into U.S. navigable waters, including territorial waters (extending to three miles from thecoastline), tributaries, the contiguous zone (extending from three to twelve miles from the coastline), ontoshorelines, or into other waters that threaten the marine environment of the United States. Futureadjustments will incorporate the new language for the U.S. territorial sea which is now set at twelvenautical miles from the coastline. MSMS has evolved since 1973 to meet Coast Guard requirements forimproved data collection, analysis and interpretation capabilities and to facilitate safe, environmentallyprotective management of the nation's waterways. MSMS is actually a combination of three databasesystems:

* The Pollution Incident Reporting System (PIRS)(1973-1985) - PIRS was established in 1973 tofacilitate Coast Guard collection of reported spill data, as assigned by Executive Order 11735, andprovided the basis for the database system that has been successively modified to the present time.

* The Marine Safety Information System (MSIS-MP Fragment)(1985-1991) - PIRS was replaced byMSIS on 1 October 1985 to improve the program's ability to collect and manage critical incidentdata, not only reported pollution data, that is entered directly into the system by field units. MSISgreatly expanded the number of data fields in the database.

* Modified MSIS system ("MIN-MOD"-Marine Investigations Module) (1991-Present). In 1991, themarine investigations module of MSIS, MIN-MOD, was incorporated into the database to augmentthe MSIS-MP Fragment and facilitate, among other things, Coast Guard identification and analysis ofcontributing factors to marine casualties and pollution incidents.

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