2010-2011 Annual Report
Oil Spill Preparedness and Response
The council devotes considerable resources to preventing oil spills, but the risk cannot be eliminated entirely. We must be prepared to respond quickly and effectively if prevention measures fail. Two council programs address emergency preparedness and response: Oil Spill Prevention and Response Planning, and Oil Spill Prevention and Response Operations.
Oil Spill Prevention and Response Planning
State and federal laws require the operators of oil tankers and the Valdez Marine Terminal (as well as the trans-Alaska pipeline) to prepare detailed plans showing how they will respond to oil spills should prevention measures fail. The council devotes much time and attention to oversight of these all-important plans for the tankers and their terminal.
In many cases, the council participates with government and industry in work groups that develop and improve contingency plans. The council conducts independent reviews and submits comments and recommendations from these reviews.
The council promotes compliance, enforcement, and funding for state and federal regulations and oversight, and also supported the Alaska Coastal Management Program when it was still in existence. Along with local communities, the council encourages incorporating local knowledge of sensitive areas into contingency planning.
Tanker Contingency Plans
The Prince William Sound Tanker Oil Discharge Prevention and Contingency Plan was renewed in November 2007 for a period of five years. The next renewal is slated for November 2012.
As part of the 2007 approval, the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation committed to partner with the council and the Sound's oil shippers in a steering committee to guide a workgroup process continuing to improve the plan. Within the past year, a workgroup was formed to address the changing properties of the Alaska North Slope crude oil handled at the Valdez terminal and hauled out of Prince William Sound by tankers.
Phase 1 of this workgroup was completed earlier this year and focused specifically on oil properties. Phase 2 will also look at oil properties, but will take into account emulsification and the effects of skimmers. It is anticipated this information will be used by the shippers when the contingency plan is renewed in 2012. Shippers are required to submit paperwork well in advance of the deadline.
The environmental conservation department called an unannounced three-day near-shore drill in October 2010. This drill represented the response to a worst case scenario, a spill of 809,080 barrels of oil to water. The drill was coordinated by staff from the department, the U.S. Coast Guard, and the council.
Valdez Marine Terminal Contingency Plan
The Valdez terminal contingency plan was approved in May 2008 and expires in May 2013. The Council has participated in the continuous improvement of this plan over the course of several years.
A workgroup consisting of the council, the state-federal Joint Pipeline Office, the Coast Guard, and Alyeska Pipeline meets on a regular basis in an effort to continuously improve the contingency plan. The council considers the cooperation that has taken place between these various entities one of the most successful processes in which the council has participated.
The Valdez Marine Terminal workgroup continues to work on re-writing the contingency plan in a format similar to the tanker plan, namely, a technical manual that contains response details and tactics, and a core plan that contains oil spill prevention and response activities. This workgroup is also dealing with issues such as oil storage tank status and inspections, status of maintenance and repair projects at the terminal, and drill and exercise design. This cooperative effort is expected to continue.
For the past year, the council has also been working on verification of prevention commitments contained in the terminal contingency plan. These commitments range from monthly leak tests on crude oil tanks and fuel tanks, to annual inspections of overfill alarms and fuel transfer piping, to annual corrosion inspections on facility piping.
The environmental conservation department conducted an unannounced drill at the terminal in July 2010. That drill focused on personnel verification, and represented a spill of 48,000 barrels of oil to land and 155,000 barrels to water. These no-notice drills provide a more realistic snapshot of response readiness than pre-announced drills, and the council supports calling them to obtain this level of veracity.
Geographic Response Strategies
These are map-based oil-spill response strategies specific to sensitive areas and resources, such as salmon streams and clamming beaches. These pre-established defense plans can save critical time during the first hours of a response. They are customized to protect specific sensitive areas from impacts following a spill, showing responders where the sensitive areas are located and where to place spill protection resources.
The council is finishing up work done during the past couple of years in Prince William Sound, and will focus its efforts on Kodiak, Seward, or Southeastern Cook Inlet Zones in the next fiscal year. Twenty additional sites have been identified in Prince William Sound during the past year and will be included in the Prince William Sound Subarea Plan which is slated for an update in 2012. All told, 327 strategies have been completed since the program began in 2001.
Weather and Sea Current Data Collection
Weather conditions and sea currents affect nearly every aspect of oil transportation safety. They can play a role, sometimes the determining role, in efforts to prevent or to clean up oil spills. Consequently, the council promotes constant improvement in the system for collecting weather and sea current information for Prince William Sound.
In the past year the council has continued its efforts to improve equipment used to detect and predict barrier jets near the tanker lanes.
Barrier jets are localized high winds formed when a low pressure storm system approaches a barrier such as the mountain ranges along the Gulf of Alaska coast. The mountains block the general pressure flow and concentrate it into jets of wind paralleling the coast. Much steeper ocean waves can also be created by barrier jet conditions. After installing the Cape Saint Elias station in July of 2009 and last year doing data formatting for import into the National Weather Service, in 2011 the council is initiating additional data formatting to allow the station data to be imported into the Alaska Ocean Observing System.
Also under this subject, a council report on collecting saline layering data is ready for peer review. Saline layering—meaning different salt concentrations at different water depths—can affect how best to respond to an oil spill and the likelihood of oil successfully being dispersed into the water. The report provides graphical presentation of seasonal saline layering in the region.
Oil Spill Prevention and Response Operations
It takes more than volumes of carefully written and reviewed contingency plans to respond effectively to an oil spill or to an emergency that could cause one. It also takes equipment, trained people and a management system to implement the plan. And it takes practice, practice, practice. The council's oil spill response operations program monitors the operational readiness of Alyeska's Ship Escort Response Vessel System and the tanker companies, and makes sure the council itself is prepared to respond to oil spills and other emergencies.
Council staff members, volunteers and contractors monitor and report on spill response drills, exercises and training throughout the region to provide citizens, regulators and responders with information about the state of readiness and to make recommendations for improvement. Most of the monitoring work is done by council staffers, who present annual reports summarizing each year's activities, lessons learned, recommendations, and outstanding issues.
A total of 14 drills were observed and reported on by the council staff during the year covered by this report. These included three unannounced drills initiated by the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation.
Alyeska's Valdez Marine Terminal was required to conduct an unannounced personnel-focused drill in July 2010, with a follow-up unannounced drill in April 2011. Alyeska was able to demonstrate that deficiencies identified in the number of trained personnel during the first drill had been addressed.
Two 72-hour near-shore spill response drills were conducted during the year. The first was an unannounced drill in October 2010, and it demonstrated that many of the operational proficiencies and best practices gleaned from past exercises had eroded over time. The time frames described in the Prince William Sound Tanker Contingency Plan were not met during the drill and a number of areas that needed additional training were identified.
In April 2011, a second 72-hour near-shore drill was conducted as a follow-up to demonstrate that problems identified during the first drill had been corrected. While not all of the time frames for the near-shore response were met during the second exercise, there was considerable improvement over the first drill. Near-shore barge operations and the response tactics conducted by fishing vessels were significantly improved.
Other drills conducted during the year included a dispersant exercise that combined vessel and helicopter application of simulated dispersants, tanker towing exercises, incident management team tabletop and field equipment deployment exercises for the Valdez Marine Terminal, and a tanker lightering barge exercise.
Monitoring the Fishing Vessel Response Fleet
The council continues to monitor the health of the fishing vessel spill response program. These vessels are on contract with Alyeska/SERVS and in the event of a spill would be assigned such tasks as running skimmers, positioning boom and handling oiled wildlife. Each year, fishing vessel captains and crews undergo training covering tactics, equipment, and personal safety and protection, among other things. This training allows hands-on time with the equipment and actual practice on the water. There are currently over 400 vessels on contract.
In March 2011, the council met with fishing vessel owner representatives from Kodiak, Cordova, Seward, Homer, Whittier, and Valdez, and listened as the captains discussed issues concerning the fleet as a whole and their individual ports.
The program had faced challenges about a year ago because participants were concerned about compensation. Alyeska addressed this matter and the vessel captains reported that participants were now generally satisfied with the program, and that participation had grown over the past year. The captains also felt there was a continuing need to address such longer-term unresolved concerns as training, insurance, and communications with Alyeska.
They suggested a process for addressing issues and negotiating contract terms, such as setting up a committee for those purposes. Captains felt that communication with Alyeska was generally insufficient, and they saw this process as a way to improve it. The captains also sought clarification on insurance terminology and on when their coverage started and stopped.
The council feels that these concerns from the fleet are important and will work to detail the main meeting issues and related suggestions in a final report to Alyeska.
Researching New Technology for Spill Response
The council collaborated with BP and the Cordova-based Oil Spill Recovery Institute to field test a new technology for aerial observation of oil spill response: a tethered helium balloon carrying video and infrared cameras. The council funded much of the field testing and BP and the Oil Spill Recovery Institute contributed significantly as well.
The balloon was tested in Cordova and then demonstrated in Valdez, with results indicating such a system could prove valuable in spill response. The council sees this technology as complementary to more traditional over-flights. For example, helicopters and small airplanes are limited by fuel capacity. The balloon can stay in the air almost indefinitely, and is far cheaper and easier to operate. Additionally, because the balloon is more stationary, it can provide an ongoing picture of a single task or area, which is difficult for aircraft.
The tested balloon is 12 feet in diameter, 8 feet tall, and can operate up to 500 feet above the water. It is equipped with a fabric wing to provide stability in windy conditions and when under tow. The balloon easily handled towing speeds over 15 mph during testing, and similar systems have been tested at wind speeds of over 100 mph.
The camera package carried under the balloon features powerful zoom lenses and rotates to provide a 360-degree view of activities below. The system is controlled wirelessly from its tow boat with a video-game-style controller, with a laptop computer showing a geographic overlay in addition to what the cameras see. The incoming data and camera imagery can be recorded to the laptop's hard drive for later review. Because the video files are stamped with geographical reference, they could serve as part of the overall incident documentation.
The final report will comment on lessons learned, considerations for setting up a system such as this, and operational limitations. The council hopes that industry will continue to test and refine this promising tool for aerial observation.
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