The Observer, May 2005
Council, regulators, want answers on snow removal problems
The citizens’ council and state regulators are calling on the oil industry to explain and correct its apparent failure to keep the snow cleared away from a storage depot for oil-spill-response equipment in Prince William Sound.
The depot in question is at Main Bay, site of a salmon hatchery in the western part of the Sound. According to photographs from a confidential source, the shipping containers – or conexes – were blocked by snow as of March 14.
SNOWED IN: As this photo shows, conexes at the Main Bay response depot were blocked by snowdrifts as of March 14. Alyeska had last cleared the site in December 2004. Photo source confidential.
STILL SNOWED IN? A month later, on April 16, the berms were still present, though reduced in size by warm spring weather. The council has called for an independent entity to verify that response depots like Main Bay are regularly inspected and properly maintained. Photo source confidential.
The council checked with Alyeska Pipeline, which said it canceled the contract with a private party for snow removal at Main Bay for financial reasons and because the site gets less snow than Valdez. Alyeska said it was maintaining the site, bringing in crews with a vessel called the Krystal Sea, or by other means when available
However, the council learned the Krystal Sea had visited Main Bay only three times since October 2004. The last time was on Jan. 30.
“The lack of snow removal could seriously impair spill protection at the Main Bay Hatchery,” council Executive Director John Devens wrote in an April 14 letter to Alyeska and the industry group charged with planning oil-spill response. The letter said the failure to maintain the Main Bay site could be a violation of the oil-spill contingency plan for Prince William Sound, which has this requirement for hatcheries and response areas: “Year-round full-time maintenance and security programs are in place so that the equipment is ready and available for rapid deployment. The equipment caretakers will conduct periodic inspections of the oil spill response equipment, while SERVS (Alyeska’s Ship Escort/Response Vessel System) will perform scheduled maintenance and training.”
The council called on the industry to use an independent entity to check on response equipment stored around Prince William Sound. With independent inspections, Devens wrote, “it would be less likely that routine maintenance would be missed at these storage depots.”
A month after the problem at Main Bay was discovered, Alyeska still had not addressed it. An April 16 photograph showed the conexes surrounded by snow, though the drifts appeared to have shrunk with the onset of warmer weather. Alyeska told the Observer it had reviewed the photos and believes the snow would not have prevented use of the equipment.
The council letter also raised concerns that the snow-removal problem will be exacerbated by the planned replacement of the Krystal Sea. The new vessel will be available to Alyeska only on a part-time basis and will not be conducting routine maintenance trips.
On April 29, the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation demanded the industry document its contracts for maintaining the remote sites, and, for those sites where contracts were canceled, how contingency plan requirements are being met. The agency also demanded records of maintenance and inspections at the sites for the previous six months. The industry was given until May 20 to comply.
As the Observer went to press in early May, there had been no response to the agency’s request. But an Alyeska spokesman told the Observer the company was developing a plan for visits to Main Bay for snow removal and for periodic maintenance on the equipment there.
For Devens, the problem was reminiscent of the night 16 years ago when the Exxon Valdez hit Bligh Reef. Alyeska was slow to respond in part because some of its equipment was buried under snowdrifts at the tanker terminal in Valdez. Devens was the city’s mayor at the time
“Our group was set up to combat the type of complacency that produced the Exxon Valdez disaster,” Devens said. “The situation at Main Bay seems like a pretty clear signal that the lessons of 1989 are being forgotten and complacency is trying to make a comeback.”