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Texaco Puget Sound Refinery

The oil entered the water in a small sheltered tidal mudflat lying between two spits of
land.  The spill occurred at high tide during a slack tidal current and calm wind
conditions.  Containment boom was deployed across the back third of this mudflat before
the maximum ebb tidal current.  A secondary containment boom was deployed between the two
spits, effectively isolating the impacted area from the rest of Fidalgo Bay.  An
overflight at 0700 on March 26, 1992, found the majority of the oil in the water contained
within a 100- by 75-foot area near the drainage ditch where the oil had entered the water.
Only a small amount of unrecoverable sheen was observed outside the primary containment
boom, with no contamination at all observed outside the secondary containment boom.

An area 60 by 20 feet along the drainage ditch running from the septic sump to the mudflat
was saturated with waste oil approximately six inches down to a clay layer.

Approximately 1,000 feet of shoreline along the back third of the mudflat was impacted by
oil floating on the water, with the heaviest contamination along the 100 feet closest to
the drainage ditch.  Shorelines impacted included a fringing Salicornia marsh and a sand
beach backed by riprap supporting one of the facility roads.  Oil did not appear to
penetrate the mudflat itself due to the high clay content of the sediments.  Several times
over the course of the cleanup, lightly oiled kelp and other floating debris was stranded
at the high-tide line on the Crandal spit, a coarse-sand and gravel spit making up the
northern boundary of the small mudflat.