The Observer, September 2003

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Council opposes loosening of rules on tanker smoke

The citizens’ council is opposing a proposal by the state to allow oil tankers to continue discharging ballast water and loading oil at the Valdez terminal even if they are putting out illegal amounts of smoke.

Since the early 1990s, Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. has been required to halt deballasting and loading if a tanker’s smoke exceeds permitted levels.

However, Alyeska last year requested an end to the shutdown requirement, arguing, among other things, that a berthed vessel was not under its operation or control.
Though state regulators rejected other changes sought by Alyeska, they have proposed granting the company’s request on the shutdown requirement.

The council has opposed the change since Alyeska first made its request. The council, Executive Director John Devens wrote in May 2002, “is very concerned that the proposed changes to Alyeska’s operating permit will adversely affect the environmental quality of the Prince William Sound air shed.”

Opacity of tanker smoke is evaluated visually by trained observers at the Alyeska terminal. Since 1997, 45 opacity violations have been recorded there. Several lasted more than three hours, and two lasted more than six hours.

One of the more famous opacity problems occurred in July 2001, when Phillips Petroleum, amid much fanfare, sailed its first new double-hull tanker, the Polar Endeavour, into Valdez for the first time. A certified smoke reader noted a series of opacity violations by the Endeavour and by another Phillips tanker at about the same time, and Phillips’ shipping arm, Polar Tankers, eventually paid the state a fine for opacity violations.

Dropping the shutdown requirement, Devens wrote state regulators last month, “can only result in longer and more frequent opacity violation episodes.”

The state is expected to make a final decision on the rule by early October of this year.