Guest Opinion

Aug. 30, 2002

Pipeline regulators should heed call for citizen oversight

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

The regulators of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System this summer ignored a host of calls for more time to review and comment on their 1,700-page argument for approving the system for another 30 years of operation.

Let's hope the federal Bureau of Land Management and state regulators don't turn the same deaf ear to an even louder outcry from all across Alaska for the establishment of an industry-funded citizen group to oversee pipeline operations, much as our council keeps watch over tanker and oil terminal operations in Prince William Sound.

The industry and its regulators have deprecated these calls, claiming the pipeline has such a stellar record that citizen involvement would be superfluous.

We doubt that, and consider last year's shooting of the pipeline near Fairbanks a case in point. If the pipeline is truly a model of prudent regulation and careful operation, we can't help wondering why Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. needed 36 hours to stop the flow of oil from one small bullet hole.

In particular, why was Alyeska not prepared to handle the pressure it knew was inside the line? Oil continued to spurt onto the tundra as Alyeska waited for the pressure to drop low enough that its crews could clamp off the leak.

We don't monitor pipeline operations -- just tanker and oil terminal operations in Prince William Sound -- so we haven't investigated this evident lapse by Alyeska and its regulators, or proposed measures to make sure it doesn't happen again. Perhaps this apparent gap in response planning was one of a kind. However, since neither Alyeska nor its regulators picked it up ahead of time, it's impossible not to fear there are more like it in the system.

What we can say with certainty is that this is exactly the kind of planning issue we deal with every day in monitoring Prince William Sound operations. Perhaps citizen oversight wouldn't have guaranteed detection of Alyeska's lack of preparedness for dealing with a bullet hole in the pipeline. However, there's no doubt that citizen participation in the process would have materially increased the chances of this flaw being corrected before it contributed to a spill of almost 300,000 gallons of North Slope crude oil.

The oil industry and various regulators have praised us for our work in Prince William Sound, and they're right to do so. The citizen voice has been crucial in numerous safety improvements in the wake of the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill, from more and better escort tugs to iceberg detection technology to improved response planning to vapor controls at the loading berths in Valdez.

That's why it's mystifying to hear some of those same voices now resisting calls for a similar group to oversee pipeline operations. They say it is unneeded.

They're wrong. Without a citizens' council, Prince William Sound would be a much more dangerous place. With one, the pipeline corridor would be much safer.

They also say citizen oversight is too expensive. They are wrong again.

Our council costs the oil industry about $2.7 million a year. How does that compare to the value of the North Slope crude that moves through the pipeline?

The state estimates the North Slope will produce about $7.9 billion dollars worth of oil this year.

The $2.7 million we receive for what we do is not even 1 percent of that total.

It is not even one-tenth of 1 percent of the total.

It is, in fact, barely one-third of one-tenth of 1 percent of the total.

It is certainly not, as critics contend, enough of an expense to significantly reduce oil-industry profits in Alaska, or discourage investment in exploration and development.

Thirteen years ago, just after the Exxon Valdez spill, citizen oversight was an experiment. Now it's a success story, as Alaskans from Cordova to Barrow pointed out during this summer's hearings on the permit renewal for Alyeska. Regulators should learn from history, and repeat that success along the 800 miles of the trans-Alaska pipeline.

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John Devens is executive director of the Prince William Sound Regional Citizens' Advisory Council. He was mayor of Valdez at the time of the Exxon Valdez oil spill.

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.