The Observer, September 2007

return to this edition

Council, state, seek info on tanker spill plans

Both the citizens’ council and the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation say more information is needed from oil tanker companies before their oil-spill contingency plans should be renewed.

In a July 23 letter to the Department of Environmental Conservation, or DEC, Executive Director John Devens said the council was concerned that needed “information, analysis, and commitments” are missing from the plans prepared by the shipping subsidiaries and affiliates of ConocoPhillips, BP, ExxonMobil, and Tesoro.

Contingency plans – known formally as Oil Discharge Prevention and Contingency Plans – specify what the tanker companies must do to prevent oil spills and how they will respond if prevention fails.

Among the main problems highlighted by the council: too little factual data and analysis, and failure to make sure that critical prevention and response technology is the best available as required by state regulation.

The council also faulted the plans for relying on unrealistic assumptions, such as an assertion that spilled oil can be cleaned up in 10-foot seas and winds greater than 30-40 miles an hour. “We hope that the plan will be revised to become more realistic before it is approved,” Devens wrote.

The letter said more information was needed on 19 aspects of the plans, which were submitted to the state in mid-June.

The state subsequently requested more information on some 185 points in the tanker company plans. The state said it needed the information to proceed with its review of the contingency plans, which expire in November.

In the council’s view, the state’s larger number of information requests does not mean that all important issues are being addressed, as the state rejected about half the points on which the council wanted more information.

Some examples:
• The state did not support developing new strategies for sensitive areas in Prince William Sound, even though other areas of Alaska have far more of these important planning efforts in place.
• In their worst-case scenario, the tanker companies show no oil leaving Prince William Sound.  Hundreds of miles of shoreline outside the Sound were oiled by the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill.
• The shippers don’t show how they would pick up oil in darkness, leaving it unclear how they could hope to meet a state standard for recovering 300,000 barrels in 72 hours during winter.

This is the second attempt by the tanker companies to get new contingency plans approved before the old ones expire. On their first attempt, the companies used a closed development process from which the council was excluded.

After the state summarily rejected that first version of the new plans, the companies tried again, this time forming a work group in which the council participated. That led to the versions of the plans now under scrutiny by the council and the state.

“These are better,” Devens said. “But they’re still not good enough.”