The Observer, July 2007

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From the Executive Director: Looking back on a pretty good year in the Sound

By John S. Devens

Each summer, we at the citizens’ council pause to review the past 12 months, to assess what’s been accomplished and what lies ahead. On balance, I’d say we’ve had one of our most productive years.

Our relations with the oil industry are on perhaps the best footing we’ve seen in a decade. Several old issues have been satisfactorily resolved, and the new ones mostly seem less contentious. And we’re happy to note that interest in citizen oversight continues around the world.

Here are some key developments of the past year:

• We started an oral history of the Exxon Valdez oil spill, featuring interviews with people directly involved in the spill and its aftermath. We expect to publish their memories in book form by March 2009, the 20th anniversary of the spill.

• We were active on the threat that non-indigenous species from tanker ballast water pose to Alaska’s maritime environment, especially its commercial, sport, and subsistence fish stocks. There is growing interest in Congress in legislation on this issue. We are pressing federal lawmakers to make sure any such legislation requires ballast-water exchange, which is the best practice presently available for deterring invasions by non-indigenous species. In February, we organized a successful film festival with a major focus on invasive species as part of the Alaska Forum on the Environment.

• Our concerns over the future of the escort tugs that accompany loaded oil tankers through Prince William Sound were partly resolved over the past year when the tanker companies agreed to maintain the present fleet of ten tugs, at least for now. However, another question remains: what will happen to the tug fleet as federal escort requirements end with the transition to double-hull tankers? As discussed elsewhere in the Observer, the council in May called for continuing and strengthening the double-escort requirement.

• We produced “Where Do I Go From Here,” a half-hour video aimed primarily at high-school students. It focuses on jobs in the marine sciences and seafaring. We hope it will help students find careers that let them work in their home communities.

• Last fall, as Congress investigated a partial shutdown of the Prudhoe Bay oil field caused by pipeline corrosion, we were invited to provide information on how citizen oversight might work on Alaska’s North Slope. We developed a whitepaper on the subject that was added to the Congressional record by Sen. Lisa Murkowski. This May, I traveled at the invitation of the U.S. State Department to Finland and Estonia to discuss citizen involvement in oil spill prevention and response. Interest was intense; I gave four major speeches and approximately 15 news interviews.

• This year saw an agreement that we believe will solve a long-running problem at Alyeska Pipeline’s tanker terminal in Valdez: hazardous air pollution from the facility that cleans oily residue from tanker ballast water. After lengthy discussions among ourselves, Alyeska, and its oil-company owners, the owners committed to upgrades that will eliminate virtually all of this pollution by the end of 2008. In response, we published newspaper advertisements in Valdez and Anchorage commending the owners for their commitment, and we pledged to continue working with them to see the upgrades completed.

• We settled a dispute with Alyeska over the council’s right to investigate the profitability of oil companies operating on Alaska’s North Slope. Alyeska dropped its claim that the council may not use Alyeska contract funds for such investigations, and paid half our legal expenses.

• We participated with Alyeska and the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation in a remarkably cooperative work-group process to develop a new oil-spill contingency plan for the tanker terminal. The process was such a model of effective interaction among citizens, industry, and regulators that we nominated Alyeska and the environmental conservation department for recognition from the Pacific States/British Columbia Oil Spill Task Force.

We saw the other side of this coin in a highly unsatisfactory contingency-planning process conducted by the tanker companies. Their plan was prepared in private, without citizen participation, and was so deficient when first submitted that it was summarily rejected by the state. The tanker companies returned to the drawing board, set up a work-group process comparable to Alyeska’s, and invited us to participate. The revised tanker plan was approved by the state for public comment, and we are optimistic the final version will be comparable in quality to Alyeska’s terminal plan.

The federal Oil Pollution Act of 1990 called on citizens, industry, and regulators to work as partners to prevent a return to the complacency that led up to the Exxon Valdez oil spill. We believe the accomplishments of the past year prove that process is working, and we commit to continue it in the coming year.