Guest Opinion

Sept. 6, 2001

Windy Bay incident suggests the Sound needs better protection from non-crude spills

By John S. Devens, Ph.D.
Executive Director
Prince William Sound Regional Citizens' Advisory Council

When the fishing tender Windy Bay sank near Olsen Island on Aug. 4, it caused the biggest oil spill in Prince William Sound since the Exxon Valdez. It also set off a healthy debate about whether enough is being done about spills not involving crude oil.

The Windy Bay spilled mainly diesel -- 35,000 gallons of it. There is no clearly established system for the operators of relatively small vessels like the 180-foot Windy Bay to manage their own cleanups. So the Coast Guard took charge in this case, and called on Alyeska's Ship Escort/Response Vessel System to help.

Some people wondered why our council wasn't involved. It's because we were formed to do one thing only: prevent pollution caused by the transportation of North Slope crude oil through Prince William Sound and the Gulf of Alaska. This is embedded in two documents crucial to our existence.

One is the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, which Congress passed in response to the Exxon spill. It calls for citizen advisory groups for Prince William Sound and for Cook Inlet.

The other document is our contract with Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. It provides most of our money, and limits the use of Alyeska funds to oversight of crude oil operations.

Together, these documents require that we find new money if we want to take on responsibilities unrelated to the marine transportation of North Slope crude oil.

And it would take a lot of money to monitor non-crude operations the way we monitor oil tankers and the Alyeska terminal. The most critical time for citizens to be involved is not during the cleanup of a spill, but before it happens. That's when all-important prevention measures are devised and put in place, as well as measures for responding when prevention fails.

Even for an advisory group like ours, this process is expensive in both money and work time. That is why we couldn't undertake oversight of non-crude operations without jeopardizing our main mission of preventing crude oils spills like the Exxon Valdez.

However, it should go without saying that we, as citizens of Alaska and stewards of its waters, are dismayed by incidents like the Windy Bay spill. Pollution is pollution, whatever the source.

Since the Windy Bay incident, there has been much talk about whether more oversight of non-crude operations is needed.

Alyeska's people did a fine job on the cleanup this time, but the fact remains that their main mission is preventing and responding to crude oil spills. Next time, they might be too busy with tanker operations to divert resources to a non-crude spill.

Some help is on the horizon. The Legislature this spring passed a bill that will require non-crude haulers to prepare contingency plans.
Contingency plans specify what operators must do to prevent oil spills and to respond when prevention fails. In the crude-oil trade, they are perhaps the most important environmental protection tool citizens have. Analyzing these plans and advocating improvements to them are core functions of our council.

Contingency plans could become an equally powerful tool for oversight of non-crude operations.

Unfortunately, the lawmakers ignored our advice on one important point: They failed to include any requirement, or funding mechanism, for citizen oversight like that focused on crude-oil operations.

Contingency plans are open to public comment, but we have found that providing effective citizen input on these huge and complicated documents requires expensive assistance from technical experts in a variety of disciplines, and many hours of staff and volunteer time.
And contingency plans are only one component of citizen oversight.

It's also expensive to monitor facilities like the Alyeska terminal, do environmental sampling around the Sound, participate in drills, and carry out the many other responsibilities we have.

Has the time come for adequately funded citizen oversight of the non-crude haulers? As a resident of the Sound, I hope so.

And I'm sure that our board would give serious consideration to any proposal for our council to oversee non-crude operations, if it did not jeopardize our original mission or put us out of compliance with the Oil Pollution Act or our Alyeska contract.

Alternatively, we could serve as an information resource for a new citizen group set up to monitor non-crude operations.

As citizens and stewards of the Sound, we're interested in helping however we can to guard against incidents like the Windy Bay spill.

Editor's note: John Devens was mayor of Valdez at the time of the Exxon Valdez oil spill and is now executive director of the Prince William Sound Regional Citizens' Advisory Council. The Council is an independent non-profit corporation that promotes environmentally safe operation of the Valdez Marine Terminal and associated tankers. Its work is guided by the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, and its contract with Alyeska Pipeline Service Company. RCAC's 18 member organizations are communities in the region affected by the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill, as well as commercial fishing, aquaculture, Native, recreation, tourism and environmental groups.