The San Francisco Bay oil spill incident that occurred in November came back to the public eye as the Coast Guard apparently failed to make a public announcement at the time of the incident, and moreover, changed the figures, initially reporting a 140 gallons spill, which later turned out to be 58,000 gallons. The toxic spill stretched from San Francisco to Sonoma County, which put the authorities on high alert on November 7. At the time of the incident, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom complained the city officials have not been immediately notified of the spill.

The major problem here was that the Coast Guard could have alerted the local authorities, which would have significantly increased the number of workers and volunteers to deal with the significant oil spill. The Coast Guard did order an intervention as soon as they found out about the incident, but they underestimated both the size of the spill and the spreading area. The consequences for that: only 40 percent of the crude oil has been collected, leaving the other 60 percent to affect beaches and shore flora and fauna.

The agency gets highly criticized for practically rejecting the help of hundreds of volunteers, which would have significantly changed the oil recovering percentage, but at the same time the report, which was ordered by Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Thad Allen, said the agency also managed to recover a higher percentage than usual. However, many beaches, such as Fort Baker, Rodeo Beach, Kirby Cove, Black Sand Beach, Tennessee Valley and Angel Island were greatly affected by the spill.

On November 7, The Cosco Busan container ship struck a Bay Bridge tower and 58,000 gallons of oil leaked into the San Francisco Bay. Approximately 1,800 birds were found dead after the spill, and other 648 died after being rescued. The costs of the cleanup and recovery were estimated at $61 million, and the operations will continue until at least May 2008.