The Observer, May 2005

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Council launches effort to protect tug escort system

Stan Stephens, president of the citizens’ council, is heading a project team charged with devising a strategy to preserve the system of rescue and response tugs that escort loaded oil tankers through Prince William Sound.

The system, which employs a total of ten tugs, is an outgrowth of the Exxon Valdez spill and a series of council-sponsored technical studies in the mid-1990s.

At present, each outbound tanker is escorted by two tugs, as required by various state and federal rules.

However, one of the main requirements for escort tugs is ending as double-hull tankers come into service. The federal Oil Pollution Act of 1990, passed in response to the Exxon spill, mandates two escort tugs for single-hull tankers, but imposes no escort requirement at all for double-hull tankers. It is anticipated the Valdez tanker fleet could be all double-hull as early as 2007.

With the single-hull era drawing to a close, industry and regulators have already begun discussions about the future of the escort system. One possibility that has repeatedly been mentioned is to reduce the requirement to a single escort tug for loaded tankers.

The council’s official position is that the practice of escorting each tanker with two tugs should be preserved. (See the March 2005 Observer article “On Valdez anniversary, are escort tugs in peril?”)

“Our goal is to maintain the safest escort system in the world,” Stephens said. “We will fight any step backwards to reduce it. Most accidents are due to human error, and even a double-hull tanker can’t prevent human error.”

The project team has met several times, and a council team recently traveled to Washington, D.C., to discuss the escort system with Coast Guard officials and with the Alaska congressional delegation.

In addition, the council has retained Dr. Martha Grabowski as a consultant to analyze and report on the possibility of conducting a risk assessment of the Prince William Sound tanker escort system, including the role of human factors in accidents. Grabowski holds professorships at LeMoyne College and at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York, and has a Ph.D. in Management/Expert Information Systems. She is already familiar with the oil trade in Prince William Sound, having served as a contractor to the council during a 1996 risk assessment that helped bring about the current escort system.

Her contract calls for a written report and a presentation to the council by the end of June 2005.